Interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker Sasha Wortzel makes a stunning feature debut with RIVER OF GRASS, an award-winning, dreamlike reimagining of Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s seminal 1947 book, The Everglades: River of Grass.
In the film, Wortzel envisions a post-hurricane encounter with Douglas, whose spirit ignites a journey through the Everglades—an ecosystem both fragile and defiant. Guided by Miccosukee educator Betty Osceola, Wortzel embarks on a “deep listening walk,” weaving together the voices of Douglas, Osceola, and the filmmaker herself. Along the way, we meet a mother challenging the sugar industry, multigenerational crab fishermen, invasive-snake hunters, and a two-spirit Miccosukee poet—each a guardian of the land’s memory and resilience.
Through lyrical narration, breathtaking verité, and rare archival footage, RIVER OF GRASS reveals how the Everglades mirrors America’s own fraught origin story—haunted, resistant, and enduring.
Directed and written by Wortzel, produced with Danielle Varga, and featuring cinematography by J. Bennett, editing by Rebecca Adorno Dávila, and music by Angélica Negrón, this luminous documentary invites us to listen, remember, and imagine how we might weather the storms—together.
