Concrete Turned to Sand Film: Stunning 35mm Oyster Farms

The Concrete Turned to Sand film will have its international premiere Oct. 11 in the Documentary Competition at the BFI London Film Festival, The Hollywood Reporter reports. Directors Jessica Johnson and Ryan Ermacora shot the documentary on 35mm. They describe it as “a radical refusal of the conventional documentary narrative.”

Cinematographer Jeremy Cox, known for his work on Backrooms, gives British Columbia’s oyster farms an otherworldly, sci-fi-tinged look.

What the Concrete Turned to Sand film clip shows

An exclusive clip treats oyster farms as a strange landscape instead of explaining them. Rather than charts and talking points, the footage uses image and sound to put distance between viewers and the subject. It also includes scientific voices on ocean acidification, though sensation takes priority over explanation.

The Concrete Turned to Sand film’s premise

Johnson and Ermacora use oyster farming to show how time scales collide: the years an oyster needs to mature, fast-moving environmental change and the geological time of the planet. The 73-minute film is set off Cortes Island in British Columbia. It first screened this spring at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver.

The filmmakers worked with scientists to show climate change through experimental visuals and sound. In their words, the film “creates an encounter between the beauty and strangeness of our world.”

What’s next for the film

The festival runs Oct. 7-18, and a second screening is set for Oct. 13 at BFI Southbank. For more on the event, see our report on the London Film Festival jury, and find more in our movies coverage.

Reporting from The Hollywood Reporter.