August 13, 2025 • 26 mins
New York was once the world’s oyster capital. The director of a new feature-length impressionist hybrid documentary, "Holding Back the Tide," traces the city’s many life cycles with the oyster as her main character. Emily Packer follows environmentalists restoring oysters to the harbor, while examining the oyster not only as entangled with nature, but also as a queer icon, with much to teach about our society’s continued survival. Packer is interviewed by fellow New Yorker, Eliana Perozo, Next City's Equitable Cities Reporting Fellow for Anti-Displacement Strategies.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Straw Hut Media.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
This is Lucas Grinley from Next City show about change
makers and their stories. Truth is, there are solutions to
the problems of pressing people in cities. If you're listening,
I hope it's because you want to spread good ideas
from one city to the next city. Climate change is
reshaping our coasts, eroding shorelines, flooding neighborhoods, and threatening the
histories rooted there. In New York City, the harbor that
built the city is also a reminder of how vulnerable
(00:34):
it is. In this case, one part of the solution
may come from an unexpected source, the oyster. For filmmaker
Emily Packer, the oyster is a living metaphor, a creature
that can change gender, form community, and survive in harsh conditions.
Her impression is hybrid documentary. Holding Back the Tide explores
the queerness in nature while also bringing to light the
(00:54):
oyster's role in protecting eroding coastlines.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
They're not solitary creatures.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
What they really want to do is attached to one
another and build a whole community together.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
The breakwaters will be able to not only eliminated erosion,
but reverse it.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Through the Oysters lens. The film moves across all five boroughs,
uncovering histories of black entrepreneurship, indigenous stewardship, and everyday New
Yorker is working to restore their harbor. During Nex City's
recent Ecometropolis Film Festival, Emily spoke with Next City's Eleana
Perroso about the queerness found in nature, the roll oysters
can play in protecting closelines, and the connections between ecological
(01:35):
restoration and community resilience, including the histories and perspectives often
left out of the story.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Emily so in the film's kind of description a little
of the Little Mini Bio, it refers to the oyster
as a potential symbol of resilience in survival. And I
was really interested in the word potential because it felt
very obvious to me that it was not potential. It
was absolutely a symbol of resilience in survival. But I
(02:08):
was interested in that idea of resilience in survival and
it's connection to race and gender. Did it feel important
to kind of center black history here and connect it
with that with the oyster, the idea of the oyster,
and how does gender kind of play a role in that?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
For you?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
In the creation of this film.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, totally. I mean, I definitely think that this film
in particular, but I try, I think, with all of
the films that I make, to be really looking at
the subject through a multiplicitous like intersectional feminist perspective, meaning
taking into account you know, where are the marginal folks
(02:50):
whose stories may or may not be told in the
traditional forms of storytelling around this thing. And I did
do some very deep research both about you know, how
many oyster kissing scenes there are that we can sort
of reference in the mainstream media and what those have
to say about oysters and sensuality, but then also you know,
(03:12):
what are the sort of like Greek mythic origins and
versus the like biological origins. And as we're sort of
doing this like very very deep research on the oyster
and I think when we learned that the oysters switch
gender in order to reproduce, that was really the key
for us in terms of having a creative space in
(03:34):
which to land, especially being a queer director myself and
having queer crew on the team. It just it really
sort of unlocked something for us because we hadn't heard
about it before. There was something new to it, and
then also just in the amount of research we did
about the local history, especially there is so much black
(03:54):
history with oysters in New York. We could barely even
touch the surface of it. We just had to sort
of integrate as much of it as we were able,
and also use collaborative decisions and like creative casting, both
in terms of the documentary casting of who we're speaking
to and from whom we're learning. We wanted it to
(04:15):
be very integrated, like I said, with the indigenous history
and the sensuality and that perspective and the ecological benefits.
We were trying to weave together a lot of strings
in order to create this perspective. But there are so
many other little rabbit holes that I think could be
filled in.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
And that leads me to my next question. Because I
was fascinated. I learned that watching the film that the
oyster starts female and then becomes can become male depending
on the procreational needs in the ocean. What was the
inception story for holding back the tide? Was it oyster
and then you all found out this fact? Or was
it this fact and then you all built a story
around the oyster?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
It was oyster first and actually, I think tuck. Even
though the I think that the film does say female
to male, I think that technically they're pro dan trick
and therefore they usually go male to female. But it's
one of the things that has been studied the least
about the oyster. The oyster, you know, doesn't have sentience. Supposedly,
(05:19):
it doesn't have a nervous system, so it doesn't have
a brain. But it seems to make two choices in
its life. One is where it lands or like the
community in which it finds itself when it matures, and
what gender it is. Potentially at any time it could
they do switch back and forth. That has been proven,
(05:40):
and it does sort of seem to be at will.
And we found those things very inspiring as we started
to see those types of like community and like other
forms of community popping up, and the sort of element
of queerness became clearer to us through time. I think
it started with the oyster because we were just so
interested in the massive project of the billion Oyster project
(06:03):
and what that sort of scale had to say about
our faith in the future, and then we were interested
in this community element. But the queerness, I think we learned,
you know, one or two months into our research period,
and that did really like change things for us.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Fascinating to know that it started with the oyster, because
it's the importance of gender, sexuality kind of resistance history
throughout the film. Something else that really stood out to
me mentioning the Billion Oyster project is just that idea
of New York once being the home of the Oyster.
(06:47):
You were telling me a little bit before about it
was before it was known as a big Apple, was
known as a big Oysters fast it was.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, yeah, it was known as the Big Oyster, which
is also the name of a Mark Kurlansky book that
is great if you want to dive even deeper into
the specifics of some of this stuff. And yeah, they were,
I mean they were everywhere, and there's so much living
history of the Oyster all around New York, and there's
(07:15):
we had so much freedom as a crew of friends
to really just be exploring, and we went to so
many different locations that we thought could be beautiful or
might be relevant and tried to really get our characters
like in place and in action, and tried to also
sort of go to spaces where we could overhear knowledge
(07:37):
like naturally occurring going towards places of learning as a
way to sort of get through some of the harder
facts through documentary in that way. And I don't know,
I love space films, landscape films, and I really think
(08:00):
of this movie as sort of an alternative map. It's
a map that you you know, you can plout it
and you can look around and do we do have
all five burrows in there, which I was really excited for.
And I just I really wanted to make a map
that did center it as a space that was like
(08:20):
connected through people and through oysters, almost thinking of the
oysters as the vehicle through which we are like tuning
our ears in to get the tour around the city.
And yeah, for that reason, we were also really careful
with when and how we see the skyline. We wanted
(08:40):
to make a movie really from the from the perspective
of New Yorkers who don't necessarily have that type of
like aesthetic luxury that we're in it so much of
the time, but also you know, finding beauty in other
ways of you know, there's like sort of a disorienting
way in which like we're we're using water to like
(09:01):
craft that new map that is allowing us to see
the city differently and hopefully absolutely.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I think you know, this film does an amazing job
at kind of like raising around awareness to subverting narratives
right Like it's shining a light on gender, it's shining
a light on history and not just shining a light
but showing how it can be multifaceted and it doesn't
need to be a dichotomy.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
After the Break, why holding Back the Tide avoids the
familiar story of the Pearl and what that choice says
about centering labor, pleasure and survival in the film's vision
of the Oyster. Welcome Back Before the Break, director Emily
(09:51):
Packer talked about the oysters symbolism and holding Back the Tide,
from its ties to queerness and community to its role
in resilience. In a film about oyster, you might expect
to hear about the Pearl, but for Emily, that's not
what makes the Oyster interesting. Here's more from Eleanna and Emily.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Another thing I noticed was which I thought was really interesting,
was there was not much about the Pearl. I remember particular,
there was one kind of actor who was reoccurring who
was a poet, and he had this line that said
it was kind of like a warning to not go
after the pearl. There's not really discussion or like history
(10:38):
or mention of kind of pearls, I think in when
it comes to any of the interviews. And I was
just wondering if that was intentional.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, I think, you know, the stuff that interests me
and about the oysters is more the like beautiful, healthy muck,
the sort of like sexual, sensual cold, you know, ragged salty,
like communal stuff. And I feel like the pearls, it's
(11:11):
this like beautiful idea that they don't occur in nature
very often. I think that there is something to it.
The line in the poem is about the nacre is labor.
Nacre is the coating that basically a pearl forms when
something small irritates the oyster and it gets inside the oyster,
(11:33):
and the oyster protects itself like using what's called nacre
almost like saliva, to sort of like coat the thing
until it doesn't hurt anymore. And so the longer the
pearl's been in there, it gets bigger with that coating.
And I've been around you know, MK Fisher in her
book Consider the Oyster, she found one, and I've met
(11:56):
a couple people who have found them, but I think
that they're like, well, they're sort of personally kind of
mystical when they're naturally occurring like that. The whole business
of like impregnating the oysters and the clams thing is
like maybe it would have been interesting as sort of
a commentary on oysters and wealth, but I think we
(12:18):
were much more interested in, yeah, like sticking with the
communal sort of like sticking with the labor, like the
pearl being a warning because you know, I don't know,
if you're like going through thousands, thousands of oysters and
just to get the pearl, I think you missed the point.
But I don't know. We did use them as costuming.
(12:39):
We used a lot of my matrilineal families pearls for
the costuming, and they are kind of all over the film,
including with some of the documentary characters who we hadn't dressed.
They just kind of showed up wearing them, And I
do like to sort of look for them as little
easter eggs in the film when I'm watching it. There's
(13:02):
you know, the woman Lucina Clark who's at the beach
Inqunarsi for the ten year anniversary. She's wearing a string
of them. One of the scientists who we spend some
time clicking with is wearing pearl earrings. So yeah, some
things just are there for you.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Thinking about that pearl in terms of beauty and enjoyment.
And there was like moments where you were also seeing
the oystras you know, you've mentioned sensual and kind of
representative of pleasure, and I thought that was really fascinating
to also be met with being that symbol of survival
(13:46):
and just those kind of being antithetical to one another.
Was that kind of hard to navigate making space for
both of those kind of truths throughout the film of
We Want the Wishterers survival and also as beauty as
pleasure has, you know, not just like lay laborious, but
(14:06):
also as enjoyment.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, they're very prismatic. They're just a very prismatic thing,
and I think you can assign them many other layers
of meaning. These were the ones that rang the truest
to us, especially within the context of New York City.
I think if you start to tell the story in
New Orleans, where we have taken the film, you know,
(14:29):
that story is totally different. And I think that there's
some similarities in how it feels connecting the land and
the people, but it doesn't the like actual like the
cinematic language for that would be so different. And the
I don't know what themes come out necessarily, although I
know a little bit about how they're working on restoring
(14:51):
the coast down there, and how the they're in Florida
as well, which I know you grew up near. They're
starting to do They're starting to use the post and
West Coast techniques in the South, and so there's all
this other stuff that's coming up about, you know, like
the modern and the traditional, and the idea of meherwir
(15:14):
or the sort of like ever improving and like space
defined taste of a place.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
After the Break, Emily reflects on how climate change is
already reshaping communities from New York Sandy Ground to the
California coast, and why protecting history is part of building resilience.
Welcome Back. Before the Break, Emily Packer talked about the
(15:44):
Oyster as both pleasure and protection and holding back the tide,
and how that duality runs through the film alongside its
themes of climate change and community resilience. Oysters themselves can
provide some relief from the impacts of climate change. They
form reefs that work like a living bulkhead, slowing waves,
holding sediment in a place and helping prevent coastal erosion heres.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Emily, Yeah, I mean, I think that we are starting
to see it in our own backyards in different ways.
Like I think that there has been this idea of
climate change occurring, but not it's here. You know, it's
happening now. You know. I'm from California originally a group
(16:24):
kind of in the Bay Area, not too far away
from some of the oysters out there, and like Tamalis
Bay and it's one of the most biodiverse places in
the country, so beautiful. And now that the most of
most folks won't ensure homes in much of California because
(16:47):
of the fires. That's a real financial impact based on
what is literally happening in places that we wouldn't think
of as being immediately dangerous and the you know it,
there is a lot of environmental racism happening for that
as well, like when it comes to the aid, but
also in terms of where climate change has already been
(17:08):
sinking islands and you know, like it hits us unfairly,
and it's been happening. One of the reasons why we
couldn't include as much of the black history of Sandy Ground,
which was the first freed black community in New York
City that had established itself as its own community, Sandy Ground.
(17:28):
It's at the sort of southmost tip of Staten Island,
near where one of the curly haired scientists is in
our film, sort of pointing out different bulkheads along the
coast there. And they grew oysters and strawberries, and they
brought that oystering up from the Chesapeake and had a
huge impact on the economy of New York. And we
(17:51):
wanted to include more of that history in the film,
and the keepers of that history or this group called
the Sandy Ground Historical Society, and they were a little
wary of us. We were talking to them for a
few years while we were working on it. And then
while we were filming, the subways flooding during Hurricane Ida,
(18:13):
which you might remember if you were around in New
York and I think it was summer twenty twenty one. Yeah,
the subways flooded. We had our DP like you know,
ankle deep in the subway getting those shots and us
on Twitter like trying to direct him to where it
was safe and also where the footage might be interesting.
And meanwhile, Hurricane Ida was like destroying the records and
(18:35):
the building of this historical society. So it's luckily they
have money and their funding and they are going to
rebuild and create that make archive available again. But you know,
those are the realities. And I think that looking in
our own backyards for solutions to bolster ourselves, I've become
(18:57):
more inspired by it. The longer i'mlong the road with this.
I think we have to because no one else is
doing it. No.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
I think it's you know, it's interesting how art works
in the sense that it's timely when you create it,
and then it will become timely again, and it will
continue to be timely as it's discovered. And I do
truly hope that this is a piece that is continuously
discovered as the importance of the message and all of
the messages. But you know, kind of just this this
(19:29):
le call to action in regards to climate acknowledgment is
there and just kind of presenting in a way that
I think is really palpable for folks. I think it's
really fascinating how there are so many themes and elements
that are everyday politicized themes and using that oyster kind
of just depoliticizes them while still like communicating that sense
(19:51):
of importance and power, which I think we can all,
you know, use a little bit of beauty right now,
especially when engaging with these topics totally.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
And I thank you so much for saying that. That's
very sweet, and I think, yeah, I hope so I
also just really do the longer. I definitely started making
the film as more of a cynicist and someone who was,
if anything like pessimistic about the climate future and watching
how it does bring people together, like watching how people
(20:21):
choose to act when they do join a community effort
for something like this, like it does bring us something
that we need, I think on a more like individual,
you know, pissy and spiritual level. And I wasn't on
the soapbox about it before, but I think I am
on the soapbox about it now. Like I'm really excited
(20:42):
after nine years in New York, I think that my
chapter is ending there, but I'm excited to like get
involved in my local swamp, you know, weed clearing or
invasive species, whatever it is. In the next place that
I get to go and hang out by the water.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I think, you know, that kind of idea of connection
is definitely at the forefront. I think there was, you know,
just beginning with the farmer and I don't want to
describe her as a female farmer because she's just a farmer,
but her in the beginning. And then at one point
one of our first oyster farms that we see, there's
(21:23):
a man speaking and he says, he's like, get started
off that my priority was the oyster and now it's people.
And then it ends with this farmer who says, when
I'm out here, I don't feel like i have to
be a female farmer. I'm just a farmer. And I get,
you know, something that really stuck with me. It gives
me kind of goosebumps. As she said, as a woman,
I'm always being judged by what I'm doing or what
(21:44):
I'm not doing, and boy if that's not true, and
also just felt it just you know, again, just I
think anybody, you know, gender aside experience is being misunderstood
a reduced and so I think it was just a
really great reminder to outside of everything else of just
(22:07):
the human experience and and just something that we can
all relate to. And I think, you know, one of
the you know, themes in there definitely is community, and
it felt that was very prevalent in the locations in
the folks. Yeah, it's very prevalent.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Yeah, we just yeah, I think that this is also
a big tie between the oysters and the queerness, like
people choosing their communities and finding finding a grand on
which to sort of stand through others. This is this
is how oysters thrive. It's how people thrive, and we
(22:49):
need it, and I think, yeah, the it's interesting. Yeah,
you mentioned Sue Wicks, the farmer. She was also a
former w NBA player. She was her time into farming
and she yeah, she we She felt like an elder
to me when I met her. She really re align
(23:09):
on a lot of things, and she's just wonderful to
talk to and wonderful to listen to, as you can tell.
But she was really adamant, and so was Moody. Actually,
the real mother shucker that you meet later in the
film comes up a couple of times. Neither one of them,
you know, they knew that we wanted to be sort
of taking this angle where we were interested in, like
(23:32):
the historical black entrepreneurship of Oysters in New York, and
we were also interested in, you know, Sue as this
like you know, queer femme person fighting her way up
through like a male dominated industry, Like we are interested
in like casting those those voices. But also, like you know,
there is some there is I think a fear that
(23:54):
a crew, a documentary crew, will really reduce someone to
that really reduce the experience to a sort of SoundBite
about that experience of femaleness and or the experience of
like blackness and holding that history as an entrepreneur when really,
like what he cares about is the Oysters, and he
(24:15):
does care about the black history, but he doesn't want
to be pigeonholed for it or only sort of spoken
about when they need to bring him out for Black
History Day or whatever the case may be. And so
I think just like establishing a lot of trust and
a lot of sort of like in kind community, like
really really strong community in front of the camera and
(24:37):
behind to align people with our intentions was great. And
everyone that's in it like loves it, loves it, loves it,
which is an amazing feeling.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Next City, show
about change makers and their stories. Together we can spread
good ideas from one city to the next city. Thank
you for listening this week. Thank you to our guest
Emily Packer. She's the director of the documentary Holding Back
the Tide. To learn more about the film, visit Holding
Back thetidefilm dot com. Thank you to Next Cities Eleana
Paroso for leading the discussion, our audio producers Silvana Alcala,
(25:27):
our show producers Maggie Bowles, our executive producers Ryan Tillotson,
and I'm Lucasqriinley, the executive director for Next City. By
the way, Next City is a news organization with a
non profit model. If you like what we're doing here,
please consider pitching in to support our work. Visit nextcity
dot org slash membership to make a donation. We'd love
to hear any feedback from our listeners. Please feel free
to email us at info atnexcity dot org and if
(25:48):
you haven't already, subscribed to the show on Apple, Spotify,
good Pods, or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. The
Mista
Straw Hut Media.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
This is Lucas Grinley from Next City show about change
makers and their stories. Truth is, there are solutions to
the problems of pressing people in cities. If you're listening,
I hope it's because you want to spread good ideas
from one city to the next city. Climate change is
reshaping our coasts, eroding shorelines, flooding neighborhoods, and threatening the
histories rooted there. In New York City, the harbor that
built the city is also a reminder of how vulnerable
(00:34):
it is. In this case, one part of the solution
may come from an unexpected source, the oyster. For filmmaker
Emily Packer, the oyster is a living metaphor, a creature
that can change gender, form community, and survive in harsh conditions.
Her impression is hybrid documentary. Holding Back the Tide explores
the queerness in nature while also bringing to light the
(00:54):
oyster's role in protecting eroding coastlines.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
They're not solitary creatures.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
What they really want to do is attached to one
another and build a whole community together.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
The breakwaters will be able to not only eliminated erosion,
but reverse it.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Through the Oysters lens. The film moves across all five boroughs,
uncovering histories of black entrepreneurship, indigenous stewardship, and everyday New
Yorker is working to restore their harbor. During Nex City's
recent Ecometropolis Film Festival, Emily spoke with Next City's Eleana
Perroso about the queerness found in nature, the roll oysters
can play in protecting closelines, and the connections between ecological
(01:35):
restoration and community resilience, including the histories and perspectives often
left out of the story.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Emily so in the film's kind of description a little
of the Little Mini Bio, it refers to the oyster
as a potential symbol of resilience in survival. And I
was really interested in the word potential because it felt
very obvious to me that it was not potential. It
was absolutely a symbol of resilience in survival. But I
(02:08):
was interested in that idea of resilience in survival and
it's connection to race and gender. Did it feel important
to kind of center black history here and connect it
with that with the oyster, the idea of the oyster,
and how does gender kind of play a role in that?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
For you?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
In the creation of this film.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, totally. I mean, I definitely think that this film
in particular, but I try, I think, with all of
the films that I make, to be really looking at
the subject through a multiplicitous like intersectional feminist perspective, meaning
taking into account you know, where are the marginal folks
(02:50):
whose stories may or may not be told in the
traditional forms of storytelling around this thing. And I did
do some very deep research both about you know, how
many oyster kissing scenes there are that we can sort
of reference in the mainstream media and what those have
to say about oysters and sensuality, but then also you know,
(03:12):
what are the sort of like Greek mythic origins and
versus the like biological origins. And as we're sort of
doing this like very very deep research on the oyster
and I think when we learned that the oysters switch
gender in order to reproduce, that was really the key
for us in terms of having a creative space in
(03:34):
which to land, especially being a queer director myself and
having queer crew on the team. It just it really
sort of unlocked something for us because we hadn't heard
about it before. There was something new to it, and
then also just in the amount of research we did
about the local history, especially there is so much black
(03:54):
history with oysters in New York. We could barely even
touch the surface of it. We just had to sort
of integrate as much of it as we were able,
and also use collaborative decisions and like creative casting, both
in terms of the documentary casting of who we're speaking
to and from whom we're learning. We wanted it to
(04:15):
be very integrated, like I said, with the indigenous history
and the sensuality and that perspective and the ecological benefits.
We were trying to weave together a lot of strings
in order to create this perspective. But there are so
many other little rabbit holes that I think could be
filled in.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
And that leads me to my next question. Because I
was fascinated. I learned that watching the film that the
oyster starts female and then becomes can become male depending
on the procreational needs in the ocean. What was the
inception story for holding back the tide? Was it oyster
and then you all found out this fact? Or was
it this fact and then you all built a story
around the oyster?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
It was oyster first and actually, I think tuck. Even
though the I think that the film does say female
to male, I think that technically they're pro dan trick
and therefore they usually go male to female. But it's
one of the things that has been studied the least
about the oyster. The oyster, you know, doesn't have sentience. Supposedly,
(05:19):
it doesn't have a nervous system, so it doesn't have
a brain. But it seems to make two choices in
its life. One is where it lands or like the
community in which it finds itself when it matures, and
what gender it is. Potentially at any time it could
they do switch back and forth. That has been proven,
(05:40):
and it does sort of seem to be at will.
And we found those things very inspiring as we started
to see those types of like community and like other
forms of community popping up, and the sort of element
of queerness became clearer to us through time. I think
it started with the oyster because we were just so
interested in the massive project of the billion Oyster project
(06:03):
and what that sort of scale had to say about
our faith in the future, and then we were interested
in this community element. But the queerness, I think we learned,
you know, one or two months into our research period,
and that did really like change things for us.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Fascinating to know that it started with the oyster, because
it's the importance of gender, sexuality kind of resistance history
throughout the film. Something else that really stood out to
me mentioning the Billion Oyster project is just that idea
of New York once being the home of the Oyster.
(06:47):
You were telling me a little bit before about it
was before it was known as a big Apple, was
known as a big Oysters fast it was.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, yeah, it was known as the Big Oyster, which
is also the name of a Mark Kurlansky book that
is great if you want to dive even deeper into
the specifics of some of this stuff. And yeah, they were,
I mean they were everywhere, and there's so much living
history of the Oyster all around New York, and there's
(07:15):
we had so much freedom as a crew of friends
to really just be exploring, and we went to so
many different locations that we thought could be beautiful or
might be relevant and tried to really get our characters
like in place and in action, and tried to also
sort of go to spaces where we could overhear knowledge
(07:37):
like naturally occurring going towards places of learning as a
way to sort of get through some of the harder
facts through documentary in that way. And I don't know,
I love space films, landscape films, and I really think
(08:00):
of this movie as sort of an alternative map. It's
a map that you you know, you can plout it
and you can look around and do we do have
all five burrows in there, which I was really excited for.
And I just I really wanted to make a map
that did center it as a space that was like
(08:20):
connected through people and through oysters, almost thinking of the
oysters as the vehicle through which we are like tuning
our ears in to get the tour around the city.
And yeah, for that reason, we were also really careful
with when and how we see the skyline. We wanted
(08:40):
to make a movie really from the from the perspective
of New Yorkers who don't necessarily have that type of
like aesthetic luxury that we're in it so much of
the time, but also you know, finding beauty in other
ways of you know, there's like sort of a disorienting
way in which like we're we're using water to like
(09:01):
craft that new map that is allowing us to see
the city differently and hopefully absolutely.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I think you know, this film does an amazing job
at kind of like raising around awareness to subverting narratives
right Like it's shining a light on gender, it's shining
a light on history and not just shining a light
but showing how it can be multifaceted and it doesn't
need to be a dichotomy.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
After the Break, why holding Back the Tide avoids the
familiar story of the Pearl and what that choice says
about centering labor, pleasure and survival in the film's vision
of the Oyster. Welcome Back Before the Break, director Emily
(09:51):
Packer talked about the oysters symbolism and holding Back the Tide,
from its ties to queerness and community to its role
in resilience. In a film about oyster, you might expect
to hear about the Pearl, but for Emily, that's not
what makes the Oyster interesting. Here's more from Eleanna and Emily.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Another thing I noticed was which I thought was really interesting,
was there was not much about the Pearl. I remember particular,
there was one kind of actor who was reoccurring who
was a poet, and he had this line that said
it was kind of like a warning to not go
after the pearl. There's not really discussion or like history
(10:38):
or mention of kind of pearls, I think in when
it comes to any of the interviews. And I was
just wondering if that was intentional.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, I think, you know, the stuff that interests me
and about the oysters is more the like beautiful, healthy muck,
the sort of like sexual, sensual cold, you know, ragged salty,
like communal stuff. And I feel like the pearls, it's
(11:11):
this like beautiful idea that they don't occur in nature
very often. I think that there is something to it.
The line in the poem is about the nacre is labor.
Nacre is the coating that basically a pearl forms when
something small irritates the oyster and it gets inside the oyster,
(11:33):
and the oyster protects itself like using what's called nacre
almost like saliva, to sort of like coat the thing
until it doesn't hurt anymore. And so the longer the
pearl's been in there, it gets bigger with that coating.
And I've been around you know, MK Fisher in her
book Consider the Oyster, she found one, and I've met
(11:56):
a couple people who have found them, but I think
that they're like, well, they're sort of personally kind of
mystical when they're naturally occurring like that. The whole business
of like impregnating the oysters and the clams thing is
like maybe it would have been interesting as sort of
a commentary on oysters and wealth, but I think we
(12:18):
were much more interested in, yeah, like sticking with the
communal sort of like sticking with the labor, like the
pearl being a warning because you know, I don't know,
if you're like going through thousands, thousands of oysters and
just to get the pearl, I think you missed the point.
But I don't know. We did use them as costuming.
(12:39):
We used a lot of my matrilineal families pearls for
the costuming, and they are kind of all over the film,
including with some of the documentary characters who we hadn't dressed.
They just kind of showed up wearing them, And I
do like to sort of look for them as little
easter eggs in the film when I'm watching it. There's
(13:02):
you know, the woman Lucina Clark who's at the beach
Inqunarsi for the ten year anniversary. She's wearing a string
of them. One of the scientists who we spend some
time clicking with is wearing pearl earrings. So yeah, some
things just are there for you.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Thinking about that pearl in terms of beauty and enjoyment.
And there was like moments where you were also seeing
the oystras you know, you've mentioned sensual and kind of
representative of pleasure, and I thought that was really fascinating
to also be met with being that symbol of survival
(13:46):
and just those kind of being antithetical to one another.
Was that kind of hard to navigate making space for
both of those kind of truths throughout the film of
We Want the Wishterers survival and also as beauty as
pleasure has, you know, not just like lay laborious, but
(14:06):
also as enjoyment.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, they're very prismatic. They're just a very prismatic thing,
and I think you can assign them many other layers
of meaning. These were the ones that rang the truest
to us, especially within the context of New York City.
I think if you start to tell the story in
New Orleans, where we have taken the film, you know,
(14:29):
that story is totally different. And I think that there's
some similarities in how it feels connecting the land and
the people, but it doesn't the like actual like the
cinematic language for that would be so different. And the
I don't know what themes come out necessarily, although I
know a little bit about how they're working on restoring
(14:51):
the coast down there, and how the they're in Florida
as well, which I know you grew up near. They're
starting to do They're starting to use the post and
West Coast techniques in the South, and so there's all
this other stuff that's coming up about, you know, like
the modern and the traditional, and the idea of meherwir
(15:14):
or the sort of like ever improving and like space
defined taste of a place.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
After the Break, Emily reflects on how climate change is
already reshaping communities from New York Sandy Ground to the
California coast, and why protecting history is part of building resilience.
Welcome Back. Before the Break, Emily Packer talked about the
(15:44):
Oyster as both pleasure and protection and holding back the tide,
and how that duality runs through the film alongside its
themes of climate change and community resilience. Oysters themselves can
provide some relief from the impacts of climate change. They
form reefs that work like a living bulkhead, slowing waves,
holding sediment in a place and helping prevent coastal erosion heres.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Emily, Yeah, I mean, I think that we are starting
to see it in our own backyards in different ways.
Like I think that there has been this idea of
climate change occurring, but not it's here. You know, it's
happening now. You know. I'm from California originally a group
(16:24):
kind of in the Bay Area, not too far away
from some of the oysters out there, and like Tamalis
Bay and it's one of the most biodiverse places in
the country, so beautiful. And now that the most of
most folks won't ensure homes in much of California because
(16:47):
of the fires. That's a real financial impact based on
what is literally happening in places that we wouldn't think
of as being immediately dangerous and the you know it,
there is a lot of environmental racism happening for that
as well, like when it comes to the aid, but
also in terms of where climate change has already been
(17:08):
sinking islands and you know, like it hits us unfairly,
and it's been happening. One of the reasons why we
couldn't include as much of the black history of Sandy Ground,
which was the first freed black community in New York
City that had established itself as its own community, Sandy Ground.
(17:28):
It's at the sort of southmost tip of Staten Island,
near where one of the curly haired scientists is in
our film, sort of pointing out different bulkheads along the
coast there. And they grew oysters and strawberries, and they
brought that oystering up from the Chesapeake and had a
huge impact on the economy of New York. And we
(17:51):
wanted to include more of that history in the film,
and the keepers of that history or this group called
the Sandy Ground Historical Society, and they were a little
wary of us. We were talking to them for a
few years while we were working on it. And then
while we were filming, the subways flooding during Hurricane Ida,
(18:13):
which you might remember if you were around in New
York and I think it was summer twenty twenty one. Yeah,
the subways flooded. We had our DP like you know,
ankle deep in the subway getting those shots and us
on Twitter like trying to direct him to where it
was safe and also where the footage might be interesting.
And meanwhile, Hurricane Ida was like destroying the records and
(18:35):
the building of this historical society. So it's luckily they
have money and their funding and they are going to
rebuild and create that make archive available again. But you know,
those are the realities. And I think that looking in
our own backyards for solutions to bolster ourselves, I've become
(18:57):
more inspired by it. The longer i'mlong the road with this.
I think we have to because no one else is
doing it. No.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
I think it's you know, it's interesting how art works
in the sense that it's timely when you create it,
and then it will become timely again, and it will
continue to be timely as it's discovered. And I do
truly hope that this is a piece that is continuously
discovered as the importance of the message and all of
the messages. But you know, kind of just this this
(19:29):
le call to action in regards to climate acknowledgment is
there and just kind of presenting in a way that
I think is really palpable for folks. I think it's
really fascinating how there are so many themes and elements
that are everyday politicized themes and using that oyster kind
of just depoliticizes them while still like communicating that sense
(19:51):
of importance and power, which I think we can all,
you know, use a little bit of beauty right now,
especially when engaging with these topics totally.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
And I thank you so much for saying that. That's
very sweet, and I think, yeah, I hope so I
also just really do the longer. I definitely started making
the film as more of a cynicist and someone who was,
if anything like pessimistic about the climate future and watching
how it does bring people together, like watching how people
(20:21):
choose to act when they do join a community effort
for something like this, like it does bring us something
that we need, I think on a more like individual,
you know, pissy and spiritual level. And I wasn't on
the soapbox about it before, but I think I am
on the soapbox about it now. Like I'm really excited
(20:42):
after nine years in New York, I think that my
chapter is ending there, but I'm excited to like get
involved in my local swamp, you know, weed clearing or
invasive species, whatever it is. In the next place that
I get to go and hang out by the water.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I think, you know, that kind of idea of connection
is definitely at the forefront. I think there was, you know,
just beginning with the farmer and I don't want to
describe her as a female farmer because she's just a farmer,
but her in the beginning. And then at one point
one of our first oyster farms that we see, there's
(21:23):
a man speaking and he says, he's like, get started
off that my priority was the oyster and now it's people.
And then it ends with this farmer who says, when
I'm out here, I don't feel like i have to
be a female farmer. I'm just a farmer. And I get,
you know, something that really stuck with me. It gives
me kind of goosebumps. As she said, as a woman,
I'm always being judged by what I'm doing or what
(21:44):
I'm not doing, and boy if that's not true, and
also just felt it just you know, again, just I
think anybody, you know, gender aside experience is being misunderstood
a reduced and so I think it was just a
really great reminder to outside of everything else of just
(22:07):
the human experience and and just something that we can
all relate to. And I think, you know, one of
the you know, themes in there definitely is community, and
it felt that was very prevalent in the locations in
the folks. Yeah, it's very prevalent.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Yeah, we just yeah, I think that this is also
a big tie between the oysters and the queerness, like
people choosing their communities and finding finding a grand on
which to sort of stand through others. This is this
is how oysters thrive. It's how people thrive, and we
(22:49):
need it, and I think, yeah, the it's interesting. Yeah,
you mentioned Sue Wicks, the farmer. She was also a
former w NBA player. She was her time into farming
and she yeah, she we She felt like an elder
to me when I met her. She really re align
(23:09):
on a lot of things, and she's just wonderful to
talk to and wonderful to listen to, as you can tell.
But she was really adamant, and so was Moody. Actually,
the real mother shucker that you meet later in the
film comes up a couple of times. Neither one of them,
you know, they knew that we wanted to be sort
of taking this angle where we were interested in, like
(23:32):
the historical black entrepreneurship of Oysters in New York, and
we were also interested in, you know, Sue as this
like you know, queer femme person fighting her way up
through like a male dominated industry, Like we are interested
in like casting those those voices. But also, like you know,
there is some there is I think a fear that
(23:54):
a crew, a documentary crew, will really reduce someone to
that really reduce the experience to a sort of SoundBite
about that experience of femaleness and or the experience of
like blackness and holding that history as an entrepreneur when really,
like what he cares about is the Oysters, and he
(24:15):
does care about the black history, but he doesn't want
to be pigeonholed for it or only sort of spoken
about when they need to bring him out for Black
History Day or whatever the case may be. And so
I think just like establishing a lot of trust and
a lot of sort of like in kind community, like
really really strong community in front of the camera and
(24:37):
behind to align people with our intentions was great. And
everyone that's in it like loves it, loves it, loves it,
which is an amazing feeling.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Next City, show
about change makers and their stories. Together we can spread
good ideas from one city to the next city. Thank
you for listening this week. Thank you to our guest
Emily Packer. She's the director of the documentary Holding Back
the Tide. To learn more about the film, visit Holding
Back thetidefilm dot com. Thank you to Next Cities Eleana
Paroso for leading the discussion, our audio producers Silvana Alcala,
(25:27):
our show producers Maggie Bowles, our executive producers Ryan Tillotson,
and I'm Lucasqriinley, the executive director for Next City. By
the way, Next City is a news organization with a
non profit model. If you like what we're doing here,
please consider pitching in to support our work. Visit nextcity
dot org slash membership to make a donation. We'd love
to hear any feedback from our listeners. Please feel free
to email us at info atnexcity dot org and if
(25:48):
you haven't already, subscribed to the show on Apple, Spotify,
good Pods, or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. The
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