Join us for a film screening of River of Grass, a documentary film which is described as “An ode to the Florida Everglades, told through the prescient writings of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and those who today call the region home.” This film screening will be followed by a Q&A, and the filmmakers will also offer a Be The Media! workshop before the screening at 5pm.

This event is a collaboration with the RPI’s iEAR Presents series, supported by the Department of Arts and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, and is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Film Synopsis

RIVER OF GRASS is a present-day reimagining of environmentalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s celebrated book, “The Everglades: River of Grass,” (1947), which forever changed 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, catalyzing a prismatic journey across the Everglades with Miccosukee educator and activist Betty Osceola. Interweaving Douglas’s writing, personal narration, present-day verité, and 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.