Hampton Roads residents will soon have the opportunity to see a new documentary that highlights the unique culture of Tangier Island.
“Been Here Stay Here,” by New York filmmaker David Usui, follows three generations of residents on Tangier, about 22 miles west of the mainland Eastern Shore.
Tangier is one of the last inhabited islands in the Chesapeake Bay, but now faces existential threats from erosion, sea level rise and sinking land.
Scientists predict the town will become uninhabitable within a few decades without action, but residents are fighting to save it.
Usui spent six years filming on the island, shadowing three central subjects: longtime Mayor James “Ooker" Eskridge, 24-year-old Vice Mayor Cameron Evans and 7-year-old Jacob Parks.
The film takes an observer’s approach, capturing life on the island without conducting any interviews. “We let the community speak for themselves,” Usui told WHRO earlier this year.
Evans said he was initially hesitant to participate.
“I always felt like for a person to capture Tangier at its best, it would have to come from somebody who lives on the island,” Evans previously told WHRO. But Usui “lived here long enough for him to become part of the island himself, in order to gain those trusts, those relationships to capture something quite beautiful.”
The documentary premiered in November at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam and has since sold out screenings in Washington, D.C., Onancock and Chincoteague and elsewhere in the Mid-Atlantic.
Hampton Roads is next.
The first local screening happens next Tuesday, Aug. 12, at the Historic Palace Theatre in Cape Charles starting at 7:30 p.m..
On Aug. 20, the film comes to Norfolk with a 7:30 p.m. showing at Naro Expanded Cinema.
Then it makes a three-night run in Chesapeake at the Cinema Cafe in Edinburgh on Sept. 5-7, each at 6 p.m.
The movie will also make stops in Irvington and Richmond in September.
You can learn more and buy tickets at BeenHereStayHere.com.
