BEEN HERE STAY HERE
A film by David Usui
2024, 86 minutes
2024, 86 minutes
No. 469
Documentary
Documentary
Description
Been Here Stay Here is a quiet, immersive portrait of Tangier Island—a centuries-old Evangelical fishing community in Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay. Long framed as “America’s first climate casualty,” Tangier has been used as a symbol in debates about denial and blame. But this film offers a different lens: not through experts or statistics, but through lived experience.
The film invites viewers into the rhythms of daily life—fishing, worship, family—on an island losing ground both literally and figuratively. The island has lost two-thirds of its landmass since the 1850s. Water laps at doorsteps. Graves fall into the sea. Yet the residents remain, bound by faith, memory, and devotion to place.
In the end, this is less a film about rising seas than about what rises in us when we choose to understand instead of persuade. It is a film about belonging, loss, and the radical act of staying put—even when the world tells you to move on.
The film invites viewers into the rhythms of daily life—fishing, worship, family—on an island losing ground both literally and figuratively. The island has lost two-thirds of its landmass since the 1850s. Water laps at doorsteps. Graves fall into the sea. Yet the residents remain, bound by faith, memory, and devotion to place.
In the end, this is less a film about rising seas than about what rises in us when we choose to understand instead of persuade. It is a film about belonging, loss, and the radical act of staying put—even when the world tells you to move on.
Festivals
Official Selection, IDFA
Official Selection, Priceton Environmental Film Festival
Official Selection, DC Environmental Film Festival
Official Selection, Martha’s Vineyard Environmental Film Festival
Official Selection, Docaviv Film Festival
