SoGE alums Ben Barron (Worcester, NSEP MPhil ’15) and James Mitchell (Linacre, NSEP ’14), and their bandmates Sarah Noyce (Worcester, French MSc ’14) and David Carel (Exeter, PPE ’15), hatched the idea for Confluence while Ben and David were in their final months as students at Oxford. The film is in many ways an outgrowth of Ben’s MPhil thesis, which examined creative art’s capacity to help individuals allow their entrenched narratives and identities to become more plastic and malleable, meeting and collaborating as people instead of as representatives of a political viewpoint. The film is ultimately a meditation on the co-constitutional relationship between people and place, a relationship that manifests in multifaceted ways throughout the discipline of Geography.

Short Description of Confluence Film:

The Colorado River has carved a deep imprint on both the physical landscape of the American Southwest and the people who live near its waters. Confluence follows an up-and-coming indie folk band as they traverse this endangered river system, documenting the people who rely on it through original music. The film paints the river basin as a metaphorical confluence over land and resources. Music may be the tool we need to inspire a new conversation – to let our public lands unite us instead of dividing us.

Our website — www.confluencethejourney.com