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How to Carry Water

Director

Sasha Wortzel

Executive Producers

J Wortham, Jenni Wolfson, Bill & Ruth Ann Harnisch

Producers

Colleen Cassingham, Jess Devaney, Anya Rous

Editors

Viridiana Lieberman, Grace Mendenhall

Consulting Editor

Co-Editor

Assistant Editor

Cinematographer

J Bennett

Additional Cinematography

Music

Sound

Narration

Contact

This punk rock fairytale doubles as a portrait of Shoog McDaniel — a fat, queer, and disabled photographer working in and around northern Florida’s vast network of freshwater springs, the state’s source of precious drinking water. For over a decade, Shoog’s photographs have transformed the way fat people view themselves and how a fat phobic society views fat bodies. Bringing Shoog’s photography to life, the film immerses audiences in a world of fat beauty and liberation, one in which marginalized bodies — including bodies of water — are sacred.

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Sasha Wortzel

Director, River of Grass

Sasha Wortzel is an award-winning filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist. Raised in Southwest Florida and based in New York City, Wortzel specifically attends to sites and stories systematically erased or ignored from these regions’ histories. Her films have screened at MoMA DocFortnight, CPH:DOX, True/False, DOC NYC, BAMcinemaFest, San Francisco International, New Orleans Film Festival, Wexner Center for the Arts, and Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her expanded cinematic work has recently been exhibited at the New Museum, the International Center for Photography, and The Kitchen. Wortzel is a recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2023 MacDowell Fellowship, 2020 Oolite Arts Ellies Award, and 2017 NYFA Fellowship. River of Grass is her first feature documentary. The film has received institutional support from Sundance, Ford Foundation, Field of Vision, Doc Society, Chicken & Egg Pictures, and Sandbox Films. Her short films include How to Carry Water (2023), an IDA Awards nominee for Best Short Documentary currently streaming on Criterion Channel; This Is An Address (2020), distributed by Field of Vision; and Happy Birthday, Marsha! (2018; co-director Tourmaline), which won special mention at Outfest. Her artwork is in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Studio Museum of Harlem, Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, and Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places. She has been featured in The New York Times, Artforum, and Art in America.

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