One Water over the years

Our journey began in the year 2000, when four faculty members at the University of Miami from the School of Communication, College of Engineering, and School of Communication came together to make a feature length documentary film One Water. Over a six year period, 4 films filmed in 14 countries around the globe were produced. The feature length One Water (67 minutes) won accolades at festivals internationally. The television version of the film, voiced by the actor Martin Sheen, reached over 400 million homes across continents. The live orchestral version was performed at notable venues like the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The non-verbal 14 minute version of the film, along with the educational materials developed for school kids, continues to serve schools to this day.

Many collaborations resulted from the creation of the One Water films. Funded by the Knight Foundation water related documentary films were created in South Africa, Colombia, India and Bahrain in collaboration with One Water and the San Francisco based Independent Television Service (ITVS). A special version of the film was created on the occasion of the Water Prize celebrations in 2016 under the auspices of the Stockholm International Water Institute and UN Water. In 2025 alone, this non-verbal version of the film was screened at over 2300 schools across India in partnership with the Indian NGO Pratham.

While the original One Water project focused on our changing relationship to fresh water on the planet, One Water – OCEAN focuses on the 70 percent of our planet that is covered with saltwater.