Followed by a Q&A with the Director, Emily Packer and Shellfish Biologist Emma Green-Beach
This impressionist hybrid documentary traces the oyster through its many life cycles in New York, once the world’s oyster capital. Now their specter haunts the city through queer characters embodying ancient myth, discovering the overlooked history and biology of the bivalve that built the city. As environmentalists restore them to the harbor, Holding Back The Tide looks to the oyster as a queer icon, entangled with nature, with much to teach about our continued survival.
Emily Packer (she/they) is an award-winning experimental filmmaker and editor with an interest in geography, hybrid formats, and collaborative practices. Their directorial work has been screened at film festivals and theaters internationally. Emily’s feature debut “Holding Back the Tide” is a hybrid film about oysters as queer environmental heroes in NYC, which is being distributed by Grasshopper Films. Emily’s short film “By Way of Canarsie”, which she co-directed with Lesley Steele, is streaming on the Criterion Channel and was a part of POV Shorts Season 6. Her archival film “Too Long Here”, which Criterioncast called “a fascinating, important work” about the inauguration of an international park, has been used as an advocacy tool for its preservation. As an editor, Emily’s work has been featured in the New Yorker (“The Victorias” by Ethan Fuirst), on PBS (“When I’m Her “by Emily Schuman), and on Vimeo Staffpicks. Her feature film editorial experience spans indie narrative (Newfest darling “Summer Solstice” by Noah Schamus), experimental nonfiction (Catalina Jordan Alvarez’s “Sound Spring)”, historical arthouse fiction (Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s “Ballad of Suzanne Césaire”), and personal essay film (a hybrid feature by Lynne Sachs currently in development). In addition to her editing and directing work, Emily serves on programming committees for film festivals in New York City and guest-curated the Coastal Knowledge series for the Rockaway Film Festival in 2021. They have been a part of the Meerkat Media Collective since 2024, were a fellow in the 2018 Collaborative Studio at UnionDocs in Brooklyn, and are a proud alumna of the anomalous Hampshire College. Emily collects voicemails for future use; consider yourself notified.
Emma Green-Beach is the Executive Director & Shellfish Biologist of the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group. She holds a Master’s degree in Ecology & Evolution from Rutgers University and has nearly 20 years of experience in marine science, hatchery production, and community-based aquaculture development. She believes deeply in the ability of shellfish to connect people to their environment, food, economy and each other. When Emma is not growing shellfish seed and writing grant proposals, she is knitting, gardening, or wandering down the beach with her family.
