British filmmaker Jeanie Finlay (Your Fat Friend, Seahorse, Orion: The Man Who Would Be King, The Great Hip Hop Hoax) has made a name for herself as a creator who gives a voice to the voiceless and tell cinematic stories about people who may not be commonly seen and heard on screens, big and small. Her new documentary, All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea, is no different.
World premiering in the F:ACT competition of the 23rd edition of CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, on March 17, it takes audiences to her native Teesside in North East England to dive into a David and Goliath story of epic proportions.
“Fisherman Stan Rennie has worked the same stretch of coastline, where the river meets the sea, for over 50 years; the trade has been in his family for centuries,” reads a synopsis for the doc. “So when a vast tide of poisoned crabs and lobsters washes ashore like a biblical plague in the wake of a new Brexit-fueled development along that same coastline, Stan’s world is turned upside-down overnight. Have the sins of the industrial past come back to haunt the present?”
While fighting for the survival of his business, he also must deal with his own failing health, making his life a battle for the future. In the process, Stan becomes the unlikely figurehead for a grassroots campaign to uncover all sorts of uncomfortable truths and find power in community, driven by the local brand of heart, determination and a big portion of gallows humor.
Directed by Finlay, produced by her and Charlie Phillips, with cinematography by Finlay and Mark Bushnell, All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea was edited by Nicole Halova.
Ahead of the film’s world premiere, Finlay talked to THR about what drives her empathy and desire to put a spotlight on communities not accustomed to having a public voice, why they too often become the subject of “poverty safaris,” what she learned about navigating fishing boats, and what’s next for her.
The filmmaker came across the story of the dead crustaceans through her mother. “My mom swims in the North Sea three times a week,” Finlay tells THR. “I wouldn’t call her a protester. She’s not an activist. But we had this shared photo folder on my phone for her, me and my siblings, and she posted these photos of a protest with some signs saying, ‘Why did the crabs die?’ And I was just wondering: What on Earth is going on?”
She started looking into it and got very interested. “It felt like a hyperlocal story that had international significance,” Finlay explains. “And I could just see it as a film. This is my 10th feature, and I just knew that I really wanted to tell this story.”
And then she met the fishermen and found them to be engaging characters and voices. “It’s been such a privilege. The fishing community has been so open to me,” the doc maker tells THR. “It’s such a male- dominated world, but it’s been so interesting to film with these people and get to know Stan over four years and learn so much.”
Finlay even got some steering experience. “One of the first times we went out in the boat, he made me helm the fishing boat,” she says with a smile. “So I can now helm a fishing boat, even if not very well.”
Diving deep into local communities and issues is something she loves doing. “I really like films that are hyperlocal, really distinct and have got their own language, sense of humor and strong sense of identity,” the doc maker shares. “I believe in microcosmic filmmaking. The more particular you make something, the more universal and more accessible it becomes for audiences.”
Was All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea special, given that she grew up in the area? “There’s an emotional element to me making a film in the Northeast, because it’s my home, it’s the place where I grew up,” Finlay says. “And it’s the place where in 2011 I made my third feature that was my breakout feature – Sound It Out, about the last surviving record shop in Teesside.”
When making that film, she learned a lot that she has continued to apply to her projects ever since. “Often, the stories we are told about the places that are far from London are very much caricatures,” Finlay tells THR. “They’re poverty safaris. And the reaction to Sound It Out was that this was a film that was very much not like this.”
After all, she wants the people featured in her docs to feel properly represented. “It’s really important for me to make a film that Stan and his family recognize and to show the journey that they’ve been on and reflect that fairly,” she explains. “Often, the people who shout the loudest get the most space in our conversations in media, and one of the things that I’ve always tried to do in my films is to hand the baton to people who may not have the opportunity of amplification. I’m interested in intimate, small stories and, through the act of filming, [bring them to] a cinema screen that is massive.”
So for her, it’s all about representation and “challenging commonly held narratives,” Finlay notes, “because films can be a way that we navigate the world. When I was growing up in Teesside, going to the cinema every week offered a window to a much bigger world out there.”
The filmmaker is a firm believer in the continued importance of documentaries in the social media age. “Social media is a place where it’s often challenging to have more complex conversations, because it rewards binary positions,” Finlay argues. “Feature-length docs, especially observational films, can unfurl a story over three or four years. If it’s longitudinal, you have the luxury of showing change over time. So, there’s a real power and joy in long-form observational filmmaking that I think even in a world of algorithms is still relevant.”
Finlay isn’t slowing down. “The next film I’m making is a historical story,” she tells THR, before adding as much as she can share at the moment: “It’s an untold story of a woman that everyone should know about.”
But right now, her focus is on All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea. THR can reveal an exclusive clip for the doc. So sit back and watch for a taste of the issues that fisherman Stan and others have to navigate in Finlay’s All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea. We won’t spoil anything, but get ready for tradition and some financial mathematics. But be warned: something fishy is going on.
