Experiencing Interruptions?

Eternal Flow

Historic Icon, Working Waterway, Mythic Surge, Sustainable Fountain, Healing Resource, Magical Inspiration, the Mississippi River is often depicted as a Romantic Construct taken from the minds of so many people. We expect nostalgic images of steamboats and river fronts from “days of yore.” For those who live on and near the River today, those filmy images from literature and music fog over the current every day experience and images of the River, no more effluent along its shores than in Louisiana. Or do they? The movie Eternal Flow looks at today’s Mississippi River through the diverse eyes of those who have their own profoundly personal history with the River, and who carry large lessons from it, as resources for living their lives. Artists, Educators, Scientists, River Pilots, Museum founders, of many races and ethnic sensitivities expound with new voices to stories we commonly wonder over. What emerges is a community that may even only now discover it is a community. Never overlooking the day to day past, present, and future workings of the Great River, this is the ever emerging community of flow.

Based on ideas of the flaneur (Baudelaire), dérive´and psychogeography (Guy Debord), and Agnes Varda's films, the Mississippi River is considered through the lens of people for whom the RIver is meaningful in their everyday lives. It flows through their work and reflects on their faces in these flowing interviews.

  • Kevin J. McCaffrey
    Director
  • Kevin J. McCaffrey
    Writer
  • Kevin J. McCaffrey
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 45 minutes 6 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    August 18, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    75,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Kevin J. McCaffrey

Kevin McCaffrey is an award winning filmmaker, writer, editor, and oral historian. His interests primarily focus on culture, history, arts, culinary history, Louisiana cultures and the environment. He has created documentaries for broadcast television, clients, exhibits, and online and which have also been screened in several film festivals. His articles and columns have appeared in local and national magazines and newspapers and he produced a book on the history of the New Orleans Jazz Fest. He was a member of the Louisiana Folklife Commission and has been awarded grants and fellowships including a Monroe Fellowship at Tulane University, Visiting Scholar at Newcomb College, and is a Fellow of the Loyola University Institute for Environmental Communication.
Most recently, he has produced, directed and written several award winning environmental films grounded in Louisiana coastal restoration issues. His 2011 documentary for television on Acadian food culture, “No One Ever Went Hungry: Cajun Food Traditions Then & Now” was awarded the 2012 Louisiana Humanities Documentary of the Year Award by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and was a finalist in two categories for the national Taste Awards. And his 2009 documentary with the The Historic New Orleans Collection for television, “We Live To Eat: New Orleans’ Love Affair With Food,” was a finalist for a James Beard Award in broadcast media. His work continually shows on several Public Television stations and online. He developed Traditional Jazz material for the online app: “A Closer Walk” music tour app for radio station WWOZ, which was a 2018 finalist for the prestigious Webby Award. In 2005 he edited and co-authored The Incomplete, Selectively Quirky, Year-By-Year Prime Facts Edition of the History of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
His website is www.eprimemedia.com.

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Director Statement

I am enthralled by ordinary people doing extraordinary things!