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Experts are concerned about the dangerous conditions at Alligator Alcatraz, the immigrant detention center that opened Tuesday in the Florida Everglades. Hurricanes, flooding, and mosquitoes pose a more likely threat to people incarcerated there than the alligators and snakes that President Donald Trump has “joked” about.

Built in eight days, the facility consists of large tents, bunk beds, and chain-link fences that form cages to hold about 3,000 people. It has already flooded once. Despite the rudimentary setup, it will cost $450 million a year to run, according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Sasha Wortzel’s essayistic documentary flows through the Florida Everglades that are its focus as well as back and forth in time and between her observations of growing up there with those of author and conservationist Marjory Stoneman Douglas, who wrote non-fiction book The Everglades: River Of Grass and died, at the age of 108 in 1998.

Although it begins with talk of the impact of Hurricane Ian, we’ll come to learn that it’s humans who are the architects of the area’s greatest problems, our development exacerbating issues and causing fresh ones. As Stoneman Douglas succinctly puts it: “Man’s life on earth is limited by the conflict between his stupidity and his intelligence.”

Trying to improve the latter is Betty Osceola. A member of the Miccosukee Tribe, Osceola notes that Stoneman Douglas borrowed the River of Grass term from an indigenous description of the Everglades – something, it must be said,...

“Nature will always win in the end,” notes Native American environmental activist Betty Osceola, one of several intriguing characters, human and not, that star in River of Grass, Sasha Wortzel’s highly personal love letter to a region both she and the Miccosukee tribal member call home. In fact, Osceola, a fiery grandmother, has dedicated her entire life to protecting her family — the Everglades itself. As the strong-willed Osceola sees it, the question is really, “Do […]

The post “An Invitation to Connect More Deeply with Our Environment, Ourselves, and Our Collective Power”: Sasha Wortzel on Her Hot Docs-Premiering River of Grass first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

“Nature will always win in the end,” notes Native American environmental activist Betty Osceola, one of several intriguing characters, human and not, that star in River of Grass, Sasha Wortzel’s highly personal love letter to a region both she and the Miccosukee tribal member call home. In fact, Osceola, a fiery grandmother, has dedicated her entire life to protecting her family — the Everglades itself. As the strong-willed Osceola sees it, the question is really, “Do […]

The post “An Invitation to Connect More Deeply with Our Environment, Ourselves, and Our Collective Power”: Sasha Wortzel on Her Hot Docs-Premiering River of Grass first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.