Director Charlotte Sawyer's Reflections from Touring Bristol's Story of Love for The Avon

Director Charlotte Sawyer photo by Meg Avon

A translated excerpt from Director Charlotte Sawyer's interview with Conde Nast's Traveller Magazine for Another Way Film Festival in Madrid.

Another Way Film Festival celebrates its 11th edition, heading towards another activism

How did the idea for this film come about? What is your personal involvement with the Avon River issue?

I’ve travelled the world as a filmmaker for fifteen years capturing stories of loss, reconciliation, determination and hope. I specialised in reporting personal stories in hostile environments such as Iraq and Nigeria with Oxfam, often with quick turnarounds to respond to emergencies or campaigns.

I yearned to spend more time with the people I was filming and build relationships. I settled in Bristol five years ago and kept an eye out for my first feature-length documentary.

Bristol is a vibrant, diverse and creative city. It’s densely populated and the second most congested cities in England. A beautiful river flows through it, and in the east the river opens into a lush nature reserve. Minutes away from the traffic and concrete of residential estates, the peace and calm of this river takes you into a different state of being. I see this gorgeous river every day as it flows past my house. It brings me such peace and joy.

I was what you might call a “fair-weather swimmer,” only going in during the warmer months. Then I started hearing about the mad, wonderful and so distinctly Bristol ways river swimmers were pushing back against horrific pollution. A mermaid swam in polluted water towing an inflatable poo to raise awareness. A young woman was going to marry the river. I met local swimmers who test the water for evidence of sewage pollution and saw people building swimming infrastructure around a “no swimming” sign put up by the council. I grabbed my camera and started rolling.

There is a culture of protest in Bristol: people fight the status quo, truly believing in the impact of their individual actions, adding creativity, whimsy and a lot of fun to the mix. While following these threads I joined the local citizen-science group, Conham Bathing, gathering samples. What they were doing was so important, I wanted to pay my part. I joined the “mad” winter dippers by swimming through the winter. I’m now hooked swimming in all seasons. I can’t believe that on a cold, rainy January day my yelps can be heard as I swim (albeit briefly) with a huge grin on my face, feeling truly alive.

Over a year and a half the film evolved into Rave On For The Avon. The film weaves together a tapestry of people who love and care deeply for their precious river- the Bristol way.

I'd read about people swimming in polluted rivers as a form of resistance. What real health risks might this pose?

My happiest time swimming in that river was followed immediately by my worst. I remember floating on my back on a crisp and sunny autumn morning before work. I dived under even though I don’t normally because I know how polluted it can get. I felt so full of joy and viscerally alive. I thought, I feel so happy and free.

I was then vomiting for two days. I find it ironic as it happened before a big screening of this film about sewage pollution in the river. You’d think making the film would put me off, but that day I couldn’t resist. It’s unbelievable that in a so-called developed country I can’t swim safely in my local river. But it does make sense when you look at what informs the decisions that impact the nature we’re part of: profits for companies are often prioritised over the survival of the ecosystems we rely on.

Rivers are the veins of our planet and they are dying. The problems facing our rivers, particularly in England, are multi-faceted. Weak legislation allows businesses to pollute for profit and there is not enough investment in monitoring and enforcement. A lack of testing leads to a poor understanding of river health.

The solution, however, is wonderfully simple at its core: connection and love. I’m being playful, of course. We need very serious and effective legislation and enforcement, but at the heart of it is love for something that is alive and an understanding that a river can certainly die. If love is the answer, how can we love something we don’t know? How can we know something we don’t have access to? If people stay out of the water then how will we know if it’s being polluted? Ordinary people are cut off from their local rivers through poor access and concern for their health and cannot serve as guardians.

That was the situation — until the rise of citizen science and wild swimming, which turned a dire situation into hope. There’s a funny narrative in England that we are so cut off from swimming in nature that we created the term “wild swimming.” The ‘typical’ wild swimmer is often imagined as a white, middle-class retiree. This likely stems from the fact that most rivers flow through private land in the UK; we have uncontested access to only about 3% of riverbanks according to grassroots campaign group Right to Roam. People with more privilege can more easily access wild spaces, but that doesn’t reflect how many people yearn for connection to a river, lake or the ocean.

What are the specific problems facing the Avon River, and why did it catch your attention?

At our much-loved swimming spot in Bristol, swimming is not a hobby. It’s a way of life for people from all walks of life. The problem is that Bristol City Council prohibit swimming and cite poor water quality as the reason. Yet nothing is done to improve the water quality, so it becomes a catch-22 for those who wish to swim. Yet people resist, with their own bodies and their own determination to advocate for their right to swim and a river’s right to flow.

The health risks posed by pollution are exactly why this issue is so urgent. The River Avon, particularly this serene section, is often filled with dangerous levels of raw sewage, chemical pollution and farm run-off. The core issue is that the river can contain bacteria at levels up to twenty times the safe limit for bathing, a fact we know from evidence gathered by Conham Bathing. If people swim in polluted water, they risk falling violently ill.

The Guardian’s analysis of the Environment Agency’s 2023 report found this particular swimming spot ranked the third worst for sewage spills in the UK. We also lack comprehensive data on agricultural run-off, which contributes heavily to pollution. This creates a terrible dilemma, especially for lower-income families who rely on the river as a free outdoor activity for mental health and wellbeing: the river offers huge benefits, but pollution can cause great harm.

What caught my attention is that despite the growing knowledge of how polluted this river is, people still swim. They need this river and they love this river. Though this film captures the fun to be had in campaigning, I take my time to reflect on that love. After screenings people always mention their favourite moment when Frank, a swimmer in his 70s in the film describes swimming “You're fed, you're replenished, you're pacified. You're drenched in a kind of a holy silence.” Franks swims every day he can. In a river filled with pollution, this must be something special. Something worth sharing.

The film has a positive and joyful tone despite everything. Is it necessary and more effective to maintain this mood in the face of political and environmental problems?

This film is a fresh take on the environmental movement and I believe that’s crucial. I wove together a story that shifts the focus to joy, empowerment and community-driven activism, moving away from the crisis and frustration often emphasised in traditional environmental films. The Guardian gave us four stars, noting that “Campaigning never looked so fun and friendly as it does in this joyous documentary.”

Activism can be tiring; campaigners get burnt out or feel hopeless when faced with losses or bad news. By celebrating friendships and the profound love people have for rivers, we are “fed and enthused again” to continue the fight.

If you look deeper, connection and relationship to rivers cut through a more foundational problem: the legal and philosophical framework that governs how we interact with rivers treats them as resources with no rights. It emerged from a 20th-century worldview in which businesses (non-human entities) have rights and often pollute for profit. The river does not have the right to flow as a natural entity and we don’t have the right to swim in it.

The fastest-growing movement across the world is the rights-of-nature movement. From a cloud forest in Ecuador to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, natural entities are being granted rights enshrined in constitutions to local council motions. The rights-of-nature movement comes from an older way of thinking: our relationality to nature is at the core of how we engage with it. That shift in thinking is urgently needed to transform decisions by governments and businesses that have the power to either protect or destroy our rivers.

Do you think the film can be part of the solution?

I think this film holds a crucial part of the solution. In England, ordinary people have turned the tide of this movement. Swimmers demand the right to swim, citizen scientists provide evidence of pollution, creatives express deep connection and make it clear this issue won’t go away because we love our rivers. A scene from my film was screened in front of Parliament at March for Clean Water 2024, attended by 15,000 protestors. It was the first large protest for our rivers, lakes and coastlines in the UK. The film helped people remember what we were fighting for, on a day where many protestors were angry and frustrated at the lack of Government action.

This is a universal story of ordinary people trying to find connection to nature in the modern world. Each country has its unique problems, but at the foundation is this: if we lose our relationship to nature, then we suffer, and the nature that we’re part of will suffer.

What was the hardest part of making the film, and what was the most rewarding?

The hardest part was not adding hundreds more contributors. So many people love this river in their own way. I had to stop at some point! The most rewarding part was touring with the film. Over 4,500 people have seen it at more than 80 screenings, many organised by a local campaign community. During my screenings across England and Wales I saw relief on the faces of swimmers, river campaigners and activists who could simply celebrate our love for rivers. Many struggle to swim locally because it’s not safe; some don’t even have access to their local river because it runs through private land. I often joined local groups for a dip before the film and we giggled together in the cold.

My film has travelled across oceans, screening at festivals in France such as FIPADOC and toured with the British Council to Colombia at a Cine En Las Montañas film festival. Speaking to indigenous people from Mexico, Brazil and Colombia gave me deeper insight into the film’s core themes. An indigenous woman from Mexico said she loved the wedding — it was completely natural for her to imagine marrying and expressing love for a river. What struck me most was when she said, “It’s refreshing to see that you people in western countries are starting to understand what you’ve lost.” I realised this goes deeper than wanting to swim or facing government apathy and local bureaucracy. We have lost the ceremonies and stories that help us take time to connect with nature, remember our place within it, and watch carefully how it is doing. I continue to tour with the film, and I share that woman’s words at each screening.