Love Canal

Directed by Elsa Brès

300 million years ago, the north of France was a wetland. 140 years ago, a canal is dug and never filled with water. One day, vagabonds decide to go down an invisible river and pick on the way débris of a world to start a new one. The film finds its starting point in the 1970s environmental scandal of Love Canal (NY, USA) who led to the Superfund act (1986), the first federal program on damages caused to natural ressources by industrial sites. From there, the film traces a path through the post-industrial landscapes of north of France and questions, through fiction, the taking in hand (metaphorically and litterally) of those great landscapes.