EMBODYING URBAN COASTAL KNOWLEDGE
MANAGED RETREAT by Nathan Kensinger. 2018. 18 min.
A portrait of three NYC neighborhoods that were purchased by the New York State government in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, to be demolished and returned to nature as part of the city’s first ‘managed retreat’ from rising sea levels. Filmmaker in person.
AS IF SAND WERE STONE by Ben Mendelsohn. 2019. 35 min.
An essay documentary examining the making and remaking of urban waterfronts in New York City. Narrated by landscape architect Gena Wirth, the film analyzes underwater dredging as a key infrastructural process in the production of urban space. The film combines observational footage of New York’s massive harbor deepening project with a series of self-reflexive research spirals that take place within the director's imagined computer desktop. As a result, the project not only explores the making of urban coastal landscapes, but also how these sedimentary landscapes are entangled with digitally mediated spaces of discourse and image. World Premiere.
WATER AND POWER by Pat O’Neill. 1989. 57 min.
This 1989 masterpiece by Pat O’Neill is a moving meditation on industrialization, focusing on the dystopic desert created by Los Angeles’s vast water consumption.
Nathan Kensinger and Ben Mendelsohn in person.
Our Sponsors
Rockaway Film Festival would like to thank VBX™~Vernam Basin Terminal for generously hosting us at the Arverne Cinema in addition to BBX™~Barbadoes Basin Terminal for contributing to such.
RFF also thanks Rockaway Artists Alliance and the National Park Service for hosting us in Fort Tilden.
RFF is proud to be sponsored by Blundstone®, Istic Illic Pictures, and NYC Ferry. The festival is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support provided by FRANC.