Everybody Lives Downstream

But is it the lake or the eye, which contemplates better?
-Gaston Bachelard, Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, 1983

Everybody Lives Downstream, – an eco-historical, ethnographic film that tells the story of human and natural forces interacting on the Buffalo River, Niagara River, and Lake Erie. Treating the land and water as characters, Director and Producer Anna Scime offers a compassionate and nuanced examination of the intricate interactions that emerge within these waterscapes and along their shores.

Scime’s film asks us to contemplate some fundamental questions. What environmental and social issues arise as communities remediate, restore, and re-develop the land? At what benefit and cost do these changes come and how long will the effects endure? What motives are fueling the rekindled interest in water as a universal resource, a cultural referent, a recreational space, and economic stimulant? The economy of the Great Lakes Regional ‘Megalopolis’ is the fourth largest in the world and produces 15 percent of the world’s greenhouse gasses. What role do cities like Buffalo play in its future? What lies beneath the surface of the Great Lakes and what does it tell us about life on land? Everybody Lives Downstream,invites stakeholders -- those who work, live, use, and protect the waterways -- to express their point of view while the camera immerses the audience in the sensual experience of the environment.

Scime is also launching a companion website with extended audio-visual content and resources used in the making of the film to encourage further interest and discussion at: www.EVERYBODYLIVESDOWNSTREAM.org.

Anna Scime is an interdisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited at the Detroit Independent Film Festival, Berlin International Director’s Lounge, PS1 MoMA in NYC, and Videored in Bogota among others. Her documentary work has been broadcast nationally and published throughout the web on Free Speech TV, PhillyCAM and Artgrease. She has received awards for her work including fellowships from the Liberace Foundation, the Center for the Moving Image, the Robert and Carol Morris Fund for Artistic Expression and Performing Arts, the ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes and the New York State Council on the Arts.

This film was made possible with support from the Nathan Cummings Foundation (via Channels) and the Mark Diamond Research Fund, and largely through her own resources and what the filmmaker calls a “dental floss budget fueled by obsession.”

This is a FREE event.