Decades of industrial waste and raw sewage have turned Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal into one of the nation’s most toxic bodies of water. The arrival of a billion dollar EPA cleanup and a massive city-led rezoning herald a new era, but what’s of value in a neighborhood and who gets to decide?

Shot over the course of ten years, Gowanus Current employs a strictly observational direct-cinema approach to examine the convictions of this diverse community and the textures of its landscape. A documentary portrait of activism and its limits, this is urgent civic cinema exploring the conflict engendered by a housing crisis, income inequality and a changing climate.

“Gowanus, where aromas of sewage and sulfur and burning rubber waft across streets lined with low-slung warehouses, is now at the center of a fight over the future of New York City.” – The New York Times, April 9, 2021