TOPICS: ECO-CINEMA & THE RIVERS OF PARIS in Fall 2023 (FM2091A)

“Ecocinema & the Rivers of Paris” is a hybrid hands-on course focused on the growing discourse and production of fiction & nonfiction “ecocinema,” addressing the ecological issues in this age of the so-called anthropocene – with a special focus on the Seine and Bièvre rivers. You may have never heard of this tributary to the Seine, and that’s because the Bièvre river is buried under Paris. Considered polluted beyond saving in the late 1800s, a solution was found to just bury the river; but now with Paris heating up to alarming new highs because of climate change, this river, along with its history and imaginaries, is now being “re-surfaced” to absorb the heat of Paris and help keep it cool when temperatures rise.

Through critical readings of scholarly essays and viewing of diverse media arts practices, this course considers the role that film, activists, and artists play in confronting issues with rivers, such as the biopolitics of climate change, invasive species, and petrochemical waste in the age of neoliberal globalization. What discursive, aesthetic and technical strategies and interventions do these works engage in to raise awareness and inspire action on the issues they address?

With this backdrop, students will engage in hands-on research and media production, visiting several different riverine sites in Paris. We may also go dip our toes in the first “swimmable” section of the Seine, meant to pre-figure the entire river being swimmable by the 2024 Olympics. The capstone of the class, which we will incrementally work towards, will be to create a class-wide multimedia documentary that is made up of: oral history recordings, photographs, short films, social media posts, walking tours, journal writing, creative short stories, speculative exercises, experimental tribunals, sound tours, existing journalism, experimental mapping, scholarly articles, drawings, field sketches, paintings, found footage, and more. No pre-requisite is required, as all skills you co