Los Angeles filmmaker Jim Thebaut has made documentaries about a contract mafia killer, death row and the Cold War.

In his most recent project, he took on the Southwest's growing water problems.

"We need to change the way we do things, change our culture," Thebaut said. "We waste energy, we waste water. We need to restore an ethic of conservation."

Thebaut will talk about Running Dry in the American Southwest on Tuesday at The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Thebaut directed, wrote and produced the film, which is narrated by Jane Seymour.

It explores water issues in the dry landscapes of the Navajo and Hopi reservations, in glittering Las Vegas, Nev., and in Washington, D.C. New Mexico's U.S. senators, Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici, are featured in the film.

Thebaut was an environmental planner and landscape architect who says he picked up filmmaking "by osmosis." His company, The Chronicles Group, works to educate and change society through documentary films.

"I never took a film class in my life," Thebaut said during a recent Santa Fe visit.

He worked on a docudrama about the mob and illegal dumping of toxic waste called Deadly Business.

Another project was The Ice Man, a 17-hour interview he conducted with convicted mob contract killer Richard Kuklinski in Trenton State Prison in New Jersey. Thebaut worked on the A&E Television Network special about death row inmates called Execution at Midnight, a film that made him "adamantly opposed" to the death penalty.

Clean water, or the lack of it around the world, captured Thebaut's attention after he read U.S. Sen. Paul Simon's 1998 book Tapped Out: The Coming World Crisis in Water And What We Can Do About It.

Thebaut in 1995 produced Running Dry, a look at the water crisis in countries around the globe, based on Simon's book. In it, Thebaut explores why a child dies every 15 seconds somewhere in the world from lack of clean water.

Running Dry in the American Southwest followed this year. The film explores the water needs of major cities and the pressures on water sources such as the Rio Grande, the Colorado River, and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta system.

Both films have three versions — full-length, a summary and a short-clip call to action.

Thebaut hopes his latest film will stimulate conversation about the need for a solid national water plan.

Prior to Tuesday's screening at the new Centennial Engineering Building on The University of New Mexico campus, a public reception for Thebaut is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. The screening will begin at 6:15, followed by a panel discussion on the local significance of the issues with panelists from UNM, Sandia Lab and the Interstate Stream Commission.

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.