Floody is one of two short films arising from Multi-Story Water’s collaboration with and support for the Young Artists of Higher Coach Road. The other is Salt Lions. 

The making of both films was facilitated by Simon Kerrigan and Sian Williams, working alongside the Young Artists’ regular workshop co-ordinator Nicola Murray. They were made as an unsolicited contribution to Saltaire Arts Trail, and premiered in site-specific screenings over the weekend of 27-29 May, 2017 (see this blog post for full details).

As its title suggests, this film responds to the young artists’ memories of the Boxing Day flood of 2015. Towards the end, some of these memories are presented in documentary style, but the group wanted the main part of the film to be fictionalised as a monster movie — with the flood itself as the monster! They decided to personify it as figure made of plastic bags, in order to comment also on the problem of rubbish in the river.

At first glance, the connection that the young people have made here, between flooding and plastic pollution, might seem fanciful. But in fact, the presence of debris in rivers does contribute significantly to flood risk, by creating obstacles and blockages to the flow of water. (The same is true of, for example, cooking fat poured down your sink… which clogs up water pipes and thus obstructs drainage systems.) So the message of the young artists in this film is actually quite apt … and it is very much the message that they wanted to communicate.

Please note: we have sought the permission of the Young Artists’ parents to put this film online, but we have not yet identified all the children who appear in the group workshop sequence. If you are the parent of one of the children and would prefer for any reason that the film be taken down, please contact Steve on 07504 417323, and we will respond immediately.