Guest Post - Lost Rivers

The Thames isn’t the only water body flowing through London - its tributaries lie buried under layers of Victorian brick and concrete. Roads, buildings, and streams of vehicles and people move over them daily, unaware of the flux of life that moves underground. This film excavates these forgotten flows in major cities such as London, Brescia, Seoul, Toronto, and Montreal. Here, the film makes visible these unseen movements in contemporary city life, reclaimed and brought aboveground, as it were, by the network of people who are fascinated by the entrails of cities - people called ‘drainers’, urban outlaws who trespass in the name of exploration.

The film features interviews with these urban explorers, historians, city planners, amongst others, and it projects a sense of the growing importance for city dwellers to reconnect with the natural landscape that underlies all of our urban spaces. Here in London, as in other cities around the world, inhabitants are taking charge of their cities and visually reinserting history and nature into the urban fabric - which is precisely what filmmakers such as Bâcle achieve with a film like Lost Rivers.

Bâcle is based in Montreal, Canada, and is currently developing her second feature script with the support of SODEC and Telefilm Canada. She holds a BA (with distinction) in Communication Studies from Concordia University and recently completed the prestigious Masters program in Screenwriting and Producing at the University of Westminister Film School in London (UK).

Watch the trailer for Lost Rivers below:

Lost Rivers - OFFICIAL TRAILER from Catbird Productions on Vimeo

Buy your tickets for the UK Premiere HERE. The screening is on Friday 21 June at 14:30 in conjunction with a panel discussion featuring the director Caroline Bâcle, Dave Webb (Environment Agency) and Danielle Plamondon (a Drain & Sewer Explorer), chaired by Karen Brown. Lost Rivers is screening as part of our City Stories strand, along with Grasp the Nettle, Tchoupitoulas, The Human Scale, and The Venice Syndrome.

This guest post is by Pei-Sze Chow, a current PhD student in Film Studies at University College London and one of our Screen Notes series contributors.

Screen Notes: The Venice Syndrome

Our Screen Notes series allows a more in-depth discussion of the films that we are showing this year at Open City Docs Fest. Contributors from a variety of vantage points and fields including scientists, scholars and students have given their unique perspectives on the documentaries they've enjoyed, sharing their expertise and experiences to add an extra dimension to the documentaries.

Pei-Sze Chow is currently working for her PhD in Film Studies at University College London. Her research focuses on contemporary cinematic representations of landmark architecture and space in transnational regions and cities, particularly the Øresund and Berlin. She has published a chapter on the themes of authenticity and auteurship in Lars von Trier's Antichrist and currently serves as the Arts and Humanities Editor for UCL's all-faculty journal, Opticon1826.

Chow has focused on The Venice Syndrome, directed by Andreas Pichler and released in 2012. It was produced in Germany, Austria and Italy and has a run time of 80'. We're pleased to be screening the UK premiere of this thought-provoking film on Friday 21 June at 20:30, and it has been nominated for the Open City Docs Fest Best City Film Award.

The Venice Syndrome depicts the plight of a famously beautiful and romantic city. As monstrous cruise ships dominate the skyline, Venetian residents are forced out onto the mainland by rocketing rents and crumbling infrastructure. This illuminating film makes stark predictions for the future, warning that by 2030 perhaps no-one will actually live in one of the world’s best loved and most beautiful cities. Buy tickets HERE.

To read Chow's thoughts on The Venice Syndrome, please follow this link https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2ELCplMBK2QdFhSUWtjenI1TjQ/edit?usp=sharing