On July 8th, Next City will be screening "Holding Back the Tide," a feature-length impressionist hybrid documentary that traces the oyster through its many life cycles in New York, once the world’s oyster capital. Now their specter haunts the city through queer characters embodying ancient myth, discovering the overlooked history and biology of the bivalve that built the city. As environmentalists restore them to the harbor, Holding Back The Tide looks to the oyster as a queer icon, entangled with nature, with much to teach about our continued survival.

Holding Back the Tide Q & A with Director Emily Packer and Next City's Equitable Cities Reporting Fellow for Anti-Displacement Strategies Eliana Perozo

Director: Emily (she/they) is an award-winning experimental filmmaker and editor with an interest in geography, hybrid formats, and collaborative practices. Their directorial work has been screened at film festivals and theaters internationally. Emily’s short film By Way of Canarsie, which she co-directed with Lesley Steele, is streaming on the Criterion Channel and was a part of POV Shorts Season 6. Her archival film Too Long Here, which Criterioncast called “a fascinating, important work” about the inauguration of an international park, has been used as an advocacy tool for its preservation. As an editor, Emily’s work has been featured in the New Yorker (The Victorias by Ethan Fuirst), on PBS (When I’m Her by Emily Schuman), and on Vimeo Staffpicks. Her feature film editorial experience spans indie narrative (Newfest darling Summer Solstice by Noah Schamus), experimental nonfiction (Catalina Jordan Alvarez’s forthcoming Sound Spring), historical arthouse fiction (Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s Ballad of Suzanne Césaire), and personal essay film (a hybrid feature by Lynne Sachs currently in development). In addition to her editing and directing work, Emily serves on programming committees for film festivals in New York City and guest-curated the Coastal Knowledge series for the Rockaway Film Festival in 2021. They were a fellow in the 2018 Collaborative Studio at UnionDocs in Brooklyn, and are a proud alumna of the anomalous Hampshire College. Emily collects voicemails for future use; consider yourself notified.

Moderator: Eliana Perozo is an engagement reporter and political educator based in New York City. She’s covered social services, education, New York’s migrant crisis, criminal justice, public health and more. Before transitioning into engagement journalism, Eliana spent nearly 10 years working in movement spaces as an organizer and policy expert. She is an Ida B. Wells Scholar from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and holds an M.A. in engagement journalism. Her work has been featured on This American Life.