Who does water belong to? And how does one turn it into money? The multinational company Nestlé dominates the global trade in bottled drinking water and earns billions from the sale of its plastic bottles. The award-winning film BottledLife shows the company’s strategy of marketing the essential resource of water, and making a product out of common property. While the world population is growing rapidly, clean water is becoming a scarce commodity and the business of bottled water has become a booming industry. The Swiss journalist Res Gehriger follows the expansion strategy of Nestlé, the recipe for success of its purified, mineralised groundwater “Nestlé Pure Life”, which has today already become the most bought bottled water. His research takes him to the US, Nigeria, and Pakistan, and gives an insight into the thinking of the most powerful food company in the world. Bottled Life will be in cinema in Austria beginning October 2013.
German with English subtitles
Urs Schnell, Bottled Life – Nestlés Geschäfte mit dem Wasser, 2011, 90 Min © DokLab GmbH.
Urs Schnell (*1951) is filmmaker and producer. He lives and works in Bern. In 2006 he founded the film production company DokLab GmbH. In 2008 he released his movie Hooligans, followed by Bottled Life in 2012.