Directed by

Alistair Debling

Country of Origin

United Kingdom

Runtime

18:22

Category

Documentary

Shot on iPhone, 16mm film and a Mavic drone, Coastguards surveys ten miles of English coastline across 500 years, revealing a delicate ecology shaped by impacting waves of architecture, migration and militarisation. As changing climates disrupt migratory patterns along the English Channel, categories of native and invasive are thrown into question: when new arrivals land, who is deemed a threat and who is offered sanctuary?

Director Biography – Alistair Debling

Unexpected equivalences—between Tudor fortresses and nuclear power stations, disco balls and hellfire missiles, gay bars and wild elephants—often lie at the heart of my research-based practice. Though my work investigates diverse fields, from queer nightlife and ecology to the military-industrial-complex and its architectures, I am continually drawn to the question of what it means to survive. In the context of a global pandemic, amid ecological breakdown and perpetual remote-controlled warfare, I ask: what might survival look like?