The Age of Water

In Mexico’s heartland, a community is mourning the deaths of three girls from leukemia, all in the span of a year.

GALLERY

ABOUT THE FILM

Director/Co-Producers: Alfredo Alcántara, Isabel Alcántara Atalaya

Genre: Documentary

Program Length: 90 min

Premiere Date: September 8, 2025.

In Mexico’s heartland, a community is mourning the deaths of three girls from leukemia, all in the span of a year. Elia, the local kindergarten teacher, and Nely, a mother who nearly lost her newborn, form a group of women seeking an investigation. They’re met with resistance from government officials denying an underlying cause. Dr. Adrián Ortega, a hydrogeologist from the National University of Mexico supports their cause. After rigorous testing, they find that the water contains radioactive material exceeding safety standards by 300%. Their journey leads to a greater revelation: industrial farms have drained the region’s aquifers, leaving behind a poisonous source of drinking water.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Alfredo Alcántara
Co-Director/ Cinematographer
Alfredo Alcántara (co-director, cinematographer) is an Emmy-winning producer and cinematographer based in New York. His camerawork is featured in the documentary ‘American Promise’ (Sundance Film Festival, Jury Award 2013) and the documentary ‘Stateless’, (Tribeca Film Festival 2021.) In 2020, while working as a CNN producer, he was awarded an Emmy for ‘No Olvidado’ a documentary series he directed, shot and edited that follows a group of Mexican-American volunteers in search for missing migrants on the Arizona borderlands. Alfredo is a graduate of Tisch School of the Arts where he completed a BFA in Film & Television Production.

Isabel Alcántara
Co-Director/ Producer
Isabel Alcántara (Co-director) is a Mexican producer and director with a background in journalism. She was part of Chicken & Egg Pictures’ inaugural Accelerator Lab, was a 2017 BAVC MediaMaker, a 2018-2019 Firelight Doc Lab Fellow, and an International Women in Media grantee. She has written, shot and directed content for online publications such as The Outline, Slate, Paper and the GLAAD Award winning queer platform, Autostraddle. Recently, she has produced NY Emmy award-winning hyperlocal social justice content including #BHeard Town Hall: Voting in Brownsville and #BHeard Docs: Los Deliveristas for BRIC Arts Media, Brooklyn’s legacy arts and communications hub. She was also the showrunner for BRIC Radio’s flagship modern arts podcast Glitter and Doom. Currently she is a managing producer at Condé Nast Entertainment.