Spring at the river and our lovely updates

Dear River Lovers and Guardians

Spring has finally sprung at our gorgeous Bristol Avon and I have so many updates for you all! From our online premiere event to our 100th screening with England's oldest film club, Bristol's iconic cinema's upcoming screening to celebrate April's Earth Day and our River Bride's upcoming Scottish Tour. Most of all I'm excited to share that our film is finally available to watch on our website.

It is my favourite time of year on our gorgeous stretch of the Bristol Avon. Blossoms float in the air, birdsong reaches a crescendo and this week Aggie filmed an otter popping up after a morning swim in a rare and joyful sighting. As I swimm in our river, with kingfishers zipping over my head and herons gliding by, I find such peace and joy in my day.

Ok that's enough of my attempt at poetic writing and back to all of these updates!

Thank you to the over 400 river lovers who gathered online to celebrate our story of love and connection to rivers. The live-streamed Q&A was hosted by Finisterre at their fabulous St Agnes store with Surfers Against Sewage. I was joined by Bristol Citizen science group Conham Bathing's Eva Perrin (right) and SAS’s Community Water Quality Manager Kirsty Davies (left) and Mary, Women’s Institute Climate Ambassador and campaigner for the River Foy in Cornwall (to my right).

You can watch the Q&A or read my blog about the evening at this link to hear more about how citizen science, creativity and joy are important parts of what Kirsty testified that

“Local action absolutely translates to national action. That’s how change really happens.”

Most exciting is that our film is now hosted on our website. Please spread the word!!

As always you can help this indie film and our river-guardian movement by sending a link website to friends and family who you think could share in our love of rivers.

That 'word-spreading' has done so much already. Community and festival screenings are still popping up all over the world (next is France and Romania) and I'm seeing people watch the film our website from Australia to Colombia.

From Australia back to Bristol... our iconic independent cinema The Watershed is hosting a screening Sunday 19th April to celebrate Earth Day. The screening is in partnership with Bristol Doc Club and will include a Q&A with Co-Producer and star of the film Aggie.

Aggie will share updates from the campaign and how her beloved Avon played a vital part of her creating her upcoming fiction short film Breathe Out.

Thank you to photographer Nic Kane for this stunning portrait of Aggie standing in front of a sewage pipe that runs past where she swims.

In other news, we reached a huge milestone at the start of March, our 100th screening!!!

It meant so much to me to see a full house come to see the film, hosted by Britain's oldest Film Society in Stroud, founded over 70 years ago.

I was overjoyed to find out Kirsten (pictured with me on the left), one of the society's founding members came to see the film.

Kirsten said she thoroughly enjoyed the film and wished our Bristol campaign the best of luck.

I felt honoured that England’s oldest film club chose to screen my film, I couldn’t believe this was Rave On For The Avon’s 100th Screening. Over 6,00 people have seen the film in cinemas an online. What a joy, what an honour to have so many people want to share in celebrating how valued a connection to rivers in this modern world is to so many. I don’t really have sufficient words so I’ll stop there.

And finally, our very own River Bride is embarking on a Scottish Tour with the film. 

Meg will will travel to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Peebles with film screenings, puppet-making workshops, music nights and group swims.

Meg is continuing the creativity and celebration captured in this film and shared by so many across Britain and beyond and we can’t wait to see pics!

Aggie and I want to thank you all for connecting with and supporting this indie film project. It's been a long and incredible journey and we hope that this story of love and connection can be part of this movement to protect our precious rivers with creativity and joy.

Charlotte & Aggie

Director & Co-Producer

Swimmers in nature