SA Film ‘Davi’ Imagines A World Where Natural Resources Reach Their Scarcest Point

Although set in a dystopian wasteland, the concept behind new film Davi hits a little too close to home. The short film tells the story of The Numi, a group who are hunted for their unique ability to produce water: a valuable commodity in The Drylands.

The film is presented at Adelaide Film Festival as part of Made in SA, a showcase of the very best fiction and documentary shorts produced in South Australia over the past year. Tickets are available now.

The film’s release is timely, as Australia has just come out of the fifth warmest winter on record. The situation is particularly dire in New South Wales where farmers have struggled to keep their livestock fed and watered through the driest winter since 2002. Despite recent patchy rain in some areas of the state, almost 100% of NSW is currently impacted by drought in varying degrees of severity.

Australia’s struggle for water

Of course, drought is not an unfamiliar concept for most Australians. For more than a decade around the turn of the century, Australians lived under the shadow of the Millennium Drought. Cities across the country did their best to conserve water with restrictions on sprinkler use and car washing among other things.

The current drought is affecting mostly rural areas and farming communities, which means people living in metropolitan areas can easily turn a blind eye. In fact, farmers have called on people in city areas to acknowledge the hardship they’re facing, with many having to ration hay and de-stock.

Where to now?

The Bureau of Meteorology predicts winter and spring rainfall will continue to decrease overtime across southern Australia, which will see an increase in droughts. This, alongside a rise in global temperature and ocean warming and acidification, makes climate change one the biggest challenges facing our generation.

Although it’s unlikely the country, or the world, will descend into a chaotic desperate future as in Davi, it does raise questions around consequences of environmental disaster on humanity and our morality.

The film was shot in South Australia by emerging filmmaker Victoria Cocks and has a local cast and crew.

Davi is presented as part of Made in SA. Tickets are available now.

Words by Bonnie Parker