This episode celebrates two new outstanding documentaries that have been in the festival circuit these past months. Filmmaker Sasha Wortzel makes both her feature documentary directorial debut with “River of Grass”, and on Filmwax as well.
“River of Grass” is a present-day reimagining of environmentalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s celebrated 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, present-day verité, and archival glimpses, “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.
Then in the second segment, I am joined by first-time guests, co-directors of “The Invisible Doctrine“, Lucas Sabean and Peter Hutchison. “The Invisible Doctrine” – featuring activist & best-selling author George Monbiot – deconstructs the roots, secretive propagation and deep impact of a doctrine that has played a profound role in transforming our economics, politics, environment, and even how we’ve come to view ourselves – converting us from citizens to consumers in the process.
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