stream

12:05 min
2021

There is a stream called Péitruss flowing into the city of Luxembourg. It has always been there but I had never paid attention to it, nor has anyone I know. In 2020 a land restoration project has been set in motion to revitalise the valley’s deteriorated ecosystems and return them to a more natural state. This project mainly involves removing the concrete riverbed which has been containing the stream since the 1930s.

My project was to get to know the stream a little bit better by following its path over a 7km stretch across the city, taking me from a quiet residential neighborhood, through a loud intersection leading to the highway, to the historical valley of the city-center.

Following the stream I started having a conversation with it, asking questions along the way, rendered in the film as a voiceover. I question ecological concepts such as "ecosystem services" and "ecopoints". I ended up developing an affective relationship with it, leading to an intimate, poetic, almost confessional, as well as philosophical monologue.

The text of the film is transcribed down below.

Screenings:

2021 Open Screen Night at the Luxembourg City Film Festival

Stream, what do you know that I don’t?
Do you know what you’re doing?
Last summer I read that everything has an idea
I’m not sure what it means
What’s your idea stream?
How can I listent to it?

Do you have a favorite season?
Do snowflakes feel softer than rain?
Can you see what happens inside a snowflake?
Does it look like the Grinch movie?
Do you get sad when you freeze up in the winter?

Do you know that your microclimate affects the climate of the city?
Are you what they call an ecosystem service?
As in goods and services?
As in the service industry?
Should you get paid minimum wage?

What if you weren’t there?

Do you remember the Romans?
Do you remember everything?
Can you explain non linear time to me?

I keep forgetting you’re under the car when I’m crossing the big daffodil intersection
But you’re there, under the cars, you keep flowing, you never stop
You don’t even get to see the daffodils

I bet when they built your concrete bed they didn’t even ask you if you were okay with it
If you agreed
Or if your co-living creatures agreed
Where did they go?

But soon they will put stones and rocks and fish into your water
And there will be plants, and you’ll slow down, and enjoy life a little bit more
I hope there will be ducks
Do you miss ducks?

I think you’re also flowing under a gas station a little bit upstream

I don’t think you have a lot of ecopoints right now
Making you natural again will cost 72.000 points of destruction
But in the end you will be worth 340.000 ecopoints
So I guess it’s alright
Stream, are you a Eurovision contestant?
An Eco-Eurovision contestant
Luxembourg will be so proud of you

Do you ever get annoyed by the skaters over there?
Do you talk to the trees?
Do you remember when there was an ocean instead of a city?
Maybe I should ask a rock this question

Do you know the saying To go with the flow?
Do you ever get tired of flowing?

Do you ever feel stuck in your riverbed?
You don’t really have a choice do you?
It’s the only world you have
Do you ever look up at the sky and wish you could be up there in the clouds?
But you have been in the clouds!
And you know you’ll go back, it’s not permanent
Nothing is
I guess I should know that by now

Stream, I’m amazed by planes
I love to see them turn in the sky
I haven’t been on a plane in four years
It feels like bragging
Stream, can you live an interesting and exciting life without taking the plane?
Can you stay in one place your entire life and still have lived a full life?

River, there’s an indigenous creation story where a woman falls from the sky into the water
and is rescued by the animals
They try to help her and dive into the water to get some mud at the bottom
But it’s too deep
Then, the muskrat tries, and that wait, and they wait
Until they see how little body floating to the surface
He’s dead, but they find a little handful of mud in his clenched paw
The turtle tells the woman to put the mud on his shell
And the woman from the sky starts dancing on it
And together they create the Earth

River, I saw a muskrat on your shore once
He was scared of me, so I had to keep very still
He was nibbling on a piece of wood
And he disappeared into the water with the ducks
It must be pretty crowded in there

I see you’ve joined the bigger river now
Do you tell each other stories?
I read on Wikipedia that you’re traveling up North to jump into the Sour river
Is she really that sour?
Then you join the Mosel at the german border
And after a while in Germany you all jump into the might Rhine
The final stretch to the North Sea!

Rocks are real, aren’t they?
Rocks are facts, hard facts
Do you think they remember the sky?
Do you think rocks feel slow sometimes?
Do you think rocks dream about being leaves?
Do you think the rocks in there feel like they are the river?

Last summer I learned that God is change
All that you touch you change
All that you change changes you
God is change
River, you’re change too
And rocks are change
And you’re changing the rocks
You’re transforming them into something else

Do you daydream?
Do you… nightdream?
Are you scared of the dark?
Have you ever met the mermaid that’s supposed to live here?
Do you like getting tickled by the dragonflies?
And the butterflies?
And the toastflies?
And the cheeseflies?
And the mac’n’cheesflies?

Are you excited to go to the sea?
I am so excited to go to the sea
I love the sea
I like you too but the sea is, you know, the sea
Do you ever feel jealous of the sea?

I’d rather be a seagull than a duck
But being a duck must be nice too
Sometimes my butt sticks out of the water like theirs

Stream, my worst fear is trailing behind
I am trailing behind all the time
I bet you never feel like you’re trailing behind
You don’t even know what it means
Lucky you

Sometimes when I walk, I see the present
Every step is a now
Now
Now
Now
Do you see the present too when you flow?