Lowland Kids
Isle de Jean Charles, a sliver of land off the Louisiana coast, has lost most of its acreage to rising water and eroding wetlands, and the state has begun relocating the families who remain. The film follows two teenagers, Juliette and Howard, as they finish out their last years on the island, fishing, riding four-wheelers, and going to school in a place their parents and grandparents built. Interviews with residents lay out what disappears along with the land: a Native American community's ancestral home, a specific way of life tied to the bayou, and the informal knowledge of tides and weather that comes from generations living on it. Shots of flooded yards, abandoned houses, and the narrowing road that connects the island to the mainland show the slow mechanics of the loss rather than a single dramatic event. The film stays close to the kids' daily routines, letting the larger story of climate displacement emerge through what they stand to lose rather than through statistics or expert narration.