SOUTHSIDER FILMS
The world from another perspective
Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025
Current Project
The Plume: A documentary feature film
We have completed another major milestone scene in the filming of our feature-length documentary, The Plume. It’s a deep journey into the personal history and impact of the TCE contamination on my family and our desert community following the chemical contamination of main source of water in our desert community - our aquifer.
The public health and emotional impact on our families, friends, and neighbors has been immense.
We now have about 75 percent of the audiovisual material necessary to create an outstanding nonfiction film. But to finish up our final field recordings in 2026, we need your help. View our Partnership Tiers below to learn how you can support The Plume.
Photos by HCortez Media
About the Film
Four decades after leaving his Arizona hometown, a freelance reporter returns to learn the unknown history of how deadly chemicals dumped clandestinely from a military weapons factory destroyed his desert community’s main source of water, killing many of his neighbors and perhaps his own mother. For decades, Tucson’s South Side has lived with the consequences of this contamination. Families are still fighting to be heard, healed, and remembered. This film honors their courage and their truth.
SUPPORT THE PLUME: Partnership Tiers
Your contribution helps complete The Plume. Every partnership directly funds critical travel, production, editing, and post-production helping bring this story to audiences worldwide.
KEEPERS OF THE STORY: $25-$499
Help preserve stories that deserve to be seen and heard.
You’ll receive: • Name listed on the Community Supporters page on our website • A heartfelt thank-you video from the filmmaker
WATER BEARERS: $500-$2,499
Carry these stories forward and help amplify their reach.
You’ll receive everything above, plus • Name listed in the film credits under Community Contributors • Ongoing access to Director’s Notes (supporter-only Substack) • The Plume reusable water bottle • Signed photo print from the documentary • Invitation to a private online Q&A / livestream with the filmmaker and guests
LEGACY PARTNERS: $2,500-$4,999
Become a major partner in completing and sharing this film.
You’ll receive everything above, plus • Associate Producer credit in the final film • Official Southsider Films t-shirt • A personal thank-you call from the filmmaker • Invitation to an exclusive private screening (virtual or Tucson-based) • Recognition on the Southsider Films website
GUARDIANS OF THE RECORD: $5,000 +
Safeguard this story for generations to come.
You’ll receive everything above, plus • Executive Producer credit • Invitation to a private dinner connected to the film’s premiere • Permanent acknowledgment in future press materials and screenings
"This is an extraordinarily rare case when someone who personally suffered environmental injustice also has the professional skill as a broadcast journalist to tell the story through film."
-Jane Kay, Environmental Journalist
A Hidden Tragedy Comes to Light.
Since the 1980s, environmental justice activists, mostly women, have been confronting powerful politicians and companies, and demanding reparations for widespread cancer deaths and other serious illnesses caused by the dumping of carcinogens into the desert at night.
Environmental justice activist Rose Agustine took on government officials and weapons makers responsible for the water contamination.
Self-educated activist Linda Robles is one of the latest leaders of the environmental justice movement on Tucson's southside.
More than a decade passed before officials began cleaning up the highly contaminated aquifer that served for generations as our desert community's main source of water.
"Super Dave" Gutierrez has survived five bouts of cancer.
A carwash on the Southside of Tucson has been using water contaminated by industrial chemicals for decades.
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