Jetty
A record of a geological transplant: granite boulders blasted from a quarry, trucked to the coast, and placed into rock structures extending out from the New York City shoreline. This mighty human effort to out-engineer nature was captured on Super 16mm film, and features an original soundtrack by Animal Collective.
A new nonfiction film by Sam Fleischner (Stand Clear of the Closing Doors, Wah Do Dem), Jetty
documents two years of the decades-long federal project of installing granite jetties to protect
the Rockaways—a coastal neighborhood of Queens, New York—from the effects of diminishing
beaches. Interspersing footage of the people and machines at work with observations from local
residents about living where the city meets the water, the16mm format accentuates the tactility of all the elements at play: rocks, sand, metal, water, and celluloid.
Produced by How Follows What
Directed by Sam Fleischner
Cinematography by Oliver Lanzenberg
Original Score by Animal Collective