FILM + Q&A
River of Grass is a present-day reimagining of Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s groundbreaking book, The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), which transformed the public’s understanding of the area from worthless swamps to an essential source of freshwater, enabling the ecosystem to endure, just barely, today.
In the wake of a hurricane, Douglas visits filmmaker Sasha Wortzel in a dream and catalyzes a prismatic study of a wilderness that is home to a rich history and a site of resistance in the face of climate collapse. Wortzel reads Douglas's book and joins prayer walks through the Everglades with Miccosukee educator Betty Osceola, transporting the audience through the watershed past and present. We meet a mother taking on the polluting sugar industry; a two-spirit Miccosukee environmentalist and poet; a mother-daughter team removing snakes wreaking havoc on the ecosystem; and a family who have fished in the Everglades for six Generations.
Interweaving Douglas's writing, personal narration, stunning present-day verité, and rare archival footage, River of Grass reveals how this country’s origin story haunts and inextricably shapes contemporary American life, while asking how we might weather coming storms better together.
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