Linda Lilienfeld is the founder and director of Let’s Talk About Water, Mayors Make Movies and the Water Film Prize competitions for short films about water and science. Linda has over thirty-five years of experience as a film and picture researcher, specializing in science and history on projects ranging from PBS documentaries to museum exhibits and books.
She has served for the past twenty years as a research assistant to Peggy Parsons, curator of the Film Program at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. She has been a member of the steering committee and pre-screening committee for the International Water and Film Events (RIEC-IWFE.org).
Along the years, Linda has worked with hydrologists at CUAHSI (www.cuahsi.org) and has been affiliated with the African Film Festival New York. She is a member of the Water Governance Initiative (WGI) and is currently working with the Intergovernmental Hydrologic Programme (IHP) at UNESCO. She also created the Let’s Talk About Water Film Festival in Paris.
In 1992, Linda was inspired to create the Let’s Talk About Water project while working on an exhibit on global warming at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. She realized that efforts to solve environmental crises such as global warming were hindered by a lack of clarity in the science and a need to communicate the subject to the public.
For Linda, “water knits it all together” and as an advocate of the power of film to communicate, she created a “water and film” library of over 300 films. Linda has screened many of these films in a diverse range of settings—from university campuses across the country, to the House of Representatives’ Water Caucus, to a four-day theatrical program at the World Water Forum 2012 in Marseille, France. She has held eight yearly programs in Delft, the Netherlands at the Filmhuis Lumen, the TU Delft and Deltares, and many other World Water Forum meetings up through 2025. And looking forward to the next one in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 2027!
As of 2024 a new partnership has been formed with the Global Network of Water Museums (WAMU-NET). Linda’s journey continues by expanding partnerships with Let’s Talk About Water and several film and science organizations, broadening an audience for short films that address the urgent calls of our climate challenged planet and propose solutions for our water issues now and in the future.
