August 14, 2020

In this week’s episode, I speak with Lily Zepeda, director, producer & writer of Mr: TOILET: The World’s #2 Man. Because she is a self-proclaimed of the child of the nineties, this week’s song is TLC’s “Waterfalls.”

Photo Credit: Lily Zepeda

[Image description: Lily Zepeda pushes her hair back as she stands on a sidewalk. She wears a green top.]

Photo Credit: Jack Sim aka Mr. Toilet

[Image description: Jack Sim holds two following toilet paper rolls up to his face as he looks through them. He is slightly leaned back. He wears a short-sleeved green uniform with gold buttons and a green hat with a red star rest on his head .]

Lily’s Bio

Lily Zepeda is an LA-based filmmaker whose most recent documentary feature, MR TOILET: The World’s #2 Man, won the Docs for Schools Audience Award, was theatrically released in NY & LA in 2019 and toured in over two dozen cities worldwide. She is a Diversity Fellow and Accelerator Lab grantee from Chicken & Egg Pictures as well as a Hedgebrook Lab finalist. As a producer, writer, and director, Lily spent over five years capturing the challenges and triumphs of global change-makers while filming in Singapore, China, India, and the US. She has been invited to speak on festival panels and at pitch sessions such as at DOC NYC, Hot Docs, the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, and Sheffield Documentary Film Festival.

WuWD_S1E6_Lily Zepeda Transcript_08142020

Mr. TOILET: The World’s #2 Man Logline

MR TOILET: The World’s #2 Man follows the eccentric entrepreneur Jack Sim (AKA “Mr. Toilet”) who uses humor to break poo taboos and help the 2.4 billion who lack access to safe sanitation.

Mr. TOILET: The World’s #2 Man Synopsis

What do you get when you cross an eccentric self-made man with a load of crap? Jack Sim.

To a stranger, he’s a guy obsessed with toilets, but to those who know him, he’s “Mr. Toilet,” a crusader for global sanitation. Born in the Singapore slums, Jack Sim knows firsthand the agonies of not having a proper loo. Now he’s dedicating his life to a crisis no one dares talk about: Shit.

Not having a place “to go” isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a problem that impacts 2.4 billion people worldwide. In India alone, 200,000 children die each year from lack of safe sanitation, while women are regularly raped because they have to defecate in public spaces.

Jack’s kids describe him as a 12-year old trapped in a 60-year old’s body. He’s full of jokes and it can be hard to take him seriously. But, he uses humor as his weapon to fight an uphill battle against bathroom taboos. He founded the World Toilet Organization and spent the last 13 years lobbying 193 countries to raise awareness for proper sanitation. He even successfully lobbied the United Nations to create World Toilet Day – the first international day of celebration for the toilet.

Now he is plunged into his biggest challenge yet when asked to secure 6 million toilets for the “Clean India” initiative. But with few resources and no help from the government, his epic project and reputation are in jeopardy. Jack’s once supportive staff begins to doubt him; and when his family bonds start to fray over his obsessive dedication, he wonders if he’s finally met his match.

Mr. Toilet realizes there is a price to pay for being the world’s #2 man, but as a su-poo-hero he can’t quit.