Parity Pipeline

Genre

Synopsis

Like a biblical plague, a devastating tidemark of poisoned crabs appears on the Northern coastline of England. ALL RIVERS SPELL THEIR SECRETS (TO THE SEA) is a story of corruption, betrayal, and environmental collapse, told by the coastal community, whose Brexit votes were the catalyst for disaster. A modern folk story of an unlikely band of heroes, bonded together by a desire to save their communities, their livelihoods and their enivonment. Ranged against them - a government and a Lord Mayor who will do everything in their power to uphold the dream they sold as Brexit. When The New Yorker wanted to understand Brexit in 2016 they came to Hartlepool, Teesside - it voted overwhelming to leave the EU It's a small fishing town on the edge of England, far away from metropolitan London, comes last in every UK index for poverty & life expectancy and has long been in desperate need of investment, with a powerful yearning for change. This yearning was answered by Ben Houchen, one of Boris Johnson’s closest allies, who was ushered into a new, powerful role: Mayor of Teesside, and immediately vowed to rebuild the area, further, faster and better, drawing down hundreds of millions from the public purse. Central to his vision of success, a real post-Brexit monument - a regulations-defying Freeport, the first of 8 in the UK. But the Freeport has turned out to be a posioned chalice for those in the region - like the majority of the local fishermen - who voted first for Brexit and then for Boris. The dredging of the River Tees to aid in the construction of the Freeport has poisoned their catch, destroying thier livelihoods and leaving the locals feeling betrayed. Locals like Stan Rennie. Stan has been fishing single-handed for over 50 years, his family for centuries. Now his pots lay empty and he, like many others, has become the unlikeliest of activists. Also fighting against the tide of 100,000s of poisioned sea-creatures which have begun to wash up on the picturesque coast of nearby Satlburn on Sea - Sally, a former police officer and single mum. A human dynamo used to rescuing seals, now battling to save much more. The denials are loud - Houchen and the government agencies blame an “algal bloom” - but all signs suggest the die-off is due to toxins released by the dredging. The silt of the Tees has a long memory - once the most polluted stretch of water in Britain due to the area’s industrial past, its toxic legacy is being revived once more. It took decades to clean the Tees but all that hard work was undone when the Freeport dredging began. This “progress” is killing everything. Can it be stopped? ALL RIVERS SPELL THEIR SECRETS (TO THE SEA) is a cinematic, multi-layered tale of corruption, scandal and the biting reality of post Brexit Britain.