Join us after the screening for a Q+A with director Emily Packer!

Holding Back the Tide is an impressionistic hybrid documentary that really considers the oyster as it traces the mollusk's unlikely history and dynamic life cycles in New York, once the world’s oyster capital. Now, though, their dwindling presence leaves them as little more than specters in the city they were once a foundation of. As environmentalists restore them to the harbor, the oyster is examined through a queer perspective, reflecting humanity's evolving views and understanding of gender and self-actualization.

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