Professor makes movie debut in science film

Rustum Roy, a research professor in ASU’s School of Materials, is featured in a new documentary film that explores claims of revolutionary advances in the scientific understanding of the most essential material for life – water.

The School of Materials is jointly administered by the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The film is set for its United States debut on Feb. 22 at the Harkins Valley Art movie theater in Tempe.

Titled simply Water, the documentary examines new discoveries by researchers around the world on the physical and metaphysical aspects of water. Experts in diverse fields explain not only the biological, environmental, climatological and agricultural importance of water, but its connection to social behavior, politics, religion and medicine.

The documentary by Russian filmmaker Saida Medvedeva is being distributed by Intention Media, a company led by filmmaker Betsy Chasse, a co-creator of What the Bleep Do We Know?! – one of the most popular feature-film documentaries of recent years.
Water has already debuted in Europe, where it has won various awards for best documentary, best popular science film, producing and cinematography.

Roy, a materials scientist, talks about his research in the documentary, discussing his many years of work to characterize the “structure” of water and the ability to change its structure for use in various ways, such as adapting it for development of medicines.

Roy is the founding director of Penn State University’s Materials Research Laboratory. In addition to his post at Penn State, he has held joint appointments at ASU and the University of Arizona for the past several years.

He is a member of national science and engineering academies in the United States, Japan, Russia, Sweden and India.