Rave On For The Avon
A feature-length documentary film that follows a local community’s fight to save their bathing spot in unique, daring & distinctly Bristolian ways.
IN THE NEWS
UPCOMING SCREENINGS
Hebden Bridge Picturehouse, West Yorkshire // Screening + Q&A
// 11th January 2025, 7 PM
Alhambra Cinema, Penrith, Cumbria // Screening + Q&A
// 16th January 2025, 7:30 PM
The Poly, Falmouth, Cornwall // Screening
// 16th January 2025, 6 PM
Lewes Depot, East Sussex // Screening + Q&A // 3rd of February 2025
Theatreship, Canary Wharf, London // Screening + Q&A // 13th of February
The Cultplex, Manchester // Screening + Q&A // 19th of March 2025
More screenings to be announced in early 2025 so stay tuned!
PAST SCREENINGS
FILMMAKING FOR THE FUTURE FESTIVAL Screening
St Anne's House, Bristol // 14th December
The Little Theatre, Bath // 16th November
Bristol University Community Screening
School of Geography, Bristol // 23rd October
WILDSCREEN FESTIVAL Screening
Royal Photographic Society, Bristol // 16th October
Community Screening with Patagonia Bristol & Surfers Against Sewage
Watershed, Bristol // 29th September
Community Screening with Finisterre & Bristol Avon Rivers Trust
Finisterre, Bath // 11th July
Special Preview and
Thriving Avon Charter Launch at The Tobacco Factory, Bristol // 15th June
Community Screening with West Cumbria Rivers Trust
Alhambra Cinema, Keswick // 5th June
Community Screening with the School of Geography and Environment
Oxford University // 28th May
Preview Screening at The UK River Summit
Morden Hall, Southwest London // 21st May
Community Screening with Surfers Against Sewage
Mousehole, Cornwall // 10th May
Special Preview at Curzon Clevedon // 4th May
Special Preview at Bristol Aquarium // 25th April
Special Preview at BBC Natural History Unit, Bristol // 18th April
Bristol Premiere at PYTCH // 23rd March 2024
Preview at Kendal Mountain Festival // 17th November 2023
Rave on for the Avon is a fantastic, inspiring and uplifting film that makes you glad to be alive, thankful for all that is wonderful in this world, and determined to do more to appreciate and protect everything we love. It's main message is about water pollution and the need to protect our rivers as natural resources. But it goes so much further than being about rivers - it's about people-powered community; care, courage and creativity. All things to be cherished and nurtured. It is an activist story that I hope will inspire us all to notice the harm that Government and Big Business are wreaking on the environment. But it is also a warm and hopeful film about the power we all have to make change.
Jane Willis
IMDb
The Outdoor Swimming Society
“Rave On for the Avon is a beautiful new film which captures a community’s love for the Avon, their fight for Bathing Water Quality status and explores the importance of rivers in modern life – all set to a Bristol soundtrack. "
Patrick Naylor
Kendal Mountain Festival
"A sensually produced film that will truly immerse you; sink in to the stories, get deep into the issues, and rise out raving."
Claire Carter, Artistic Director Kendal Mountain Festival
EPIGRAM Magazine
“Even as a self-confessed wild swimming nerd, I was not expecting a documentary about a river to make me cry. And even less was I expecting it to make me cackle...This documentary has to be one of the best embodiments of Bristol Spirit that I have ever seen on screen”
Charlotte Kyle
KEEP IN TOUCH
We are working hard on booking cinemas in the UK for screenings in 2025. Sign up to our email list or follow us on Instagram to stay in the loop.
THE CAMPAIGN
In a densely residential part of East Bristol runs a serene section of the River Avon which attracts crowds of swimmers in the summer and a regular rotation of cold-water swimmers in winter.
It offers solace and healing for those struggling with mental health issues and a free outdoor activity for local lower-income families.
Three local swimmers (Becca, Em and Eva) formed the Conham Bathing Group, a citizen-led water testing programme to help raise awareness of the poor water quality in the Avon.
The Conham Bathing Group are applying for Designated Bathing Water Status (DBWS). Officially designated Bathing Waters are the only blue spaces where water quality is regularly monitored for its effect on human health, and legal obligations are put on polluting industries to clean up their act. In the UK there are currently only 3 stretches of river, all of which have been won through local campaigns.
Rave On For The Avon will be screened throughout the UK, inviting viewers to seek out swimming spots in their local area and fight to protect them. The situation is dire but there is hope and community to be found in protecting rivers.
We are collaborating with Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) and Rivers Trust to point people to a growing movement of activism which seeks to attain 200 designated bathing waters by 2030. For more infomation please visit SAS's Protecting Wild Waters Campaign.
There is an ecological emergency in English rivers.
The human and wildlife population are at risk.
Today, in England, only 14% of rivers are in good
ecological health & none are in good chemical health.
In 2021, the environmental performance of the UK’s
water & sewage companies fell to the lowest level
on record, with little improvement since.
But the Bristol Council prohibits swimming in the river, and it’s often filled with dangerous levels of raw sewage, chemical pollution and farm run-off.
This leaves everyone with a dilemma; for all the benefits the river gives them, it could potentially cause them even greater harm
This film features a tapestry of people who love and fight for this river, illustrating how much there is to loose if the Avon continues to face unending pollution.
This film will deliver a sense of urgency to the Bristol Council about the critical state of the River Avon and how much locals rely on it for health and wellbeing. It is a Bristol community account that will galvanise audiences to campaign for policy change in the UK and Internationally. We screened the film recently to local Councillors in Bristol to support Conham Bathing's launch of the Thriving Avon Charter, a document created by the river guardian community laying out policy recommendations for the Avon.
Read about our joyful sold-out Premiere screening at PYTCH where 300 river-lovers gathered to share in this story.