Pour On Water

A fast-paced story about community, corruption and a family's fight for justice on the streets of East London.

Set against the backdrop of artisanal coffee shops and pop-ups in gentrified Dalston, Pour on Water tells the story of a seemingly improved 'trouble spot' in EAST London. But with the long-standing class and racial tensions between the local black community and the police running through the very heart of the town, has anything really changed?

Dean Martin is the glue that holds his family together. He is the only link between his brother Errol, a habitual criminal serving a never-ending prison sentence under IPP for gun possession and drug dealing, and his sister Marlene an upwardly mobile events planner whose business is just taking off. Errol and Marlene despise each other and tension runs deep into the core of the household.

After her brother is shot, Marlene becomes a reluctant advocate for social justice in her community. However, the harder she fights and the deeper she goes, she soon learns how far the people in uniform, who are sworn to protect and serve will go to keep their dark secrets. And she realises that for some people in the community, police shootings are a business, not just tragic accidents.

Under mounting pressure from all sides and increasing unrest on the streets. Marlene must choose whether to continue fighting, not only justice for her family, but also for her community at the brink of a powerful uprising that no one would be able to ignore.

Pour on Water is about police brutality, respectability politics, race, and class issues played out on the gentrified streets of East London.

With generations of families in close-knit communities fading away into an unrecognisable area, when you take away everything that people hold dear, what is there left to lose? And when you are constantly losing, maybe the time has come to change the game.

Ava Vidal’s Pour on Water asks the question: are some victims really more worthy than others?