The River of Stuff by Toma Peiu and Luiza Parvu
The River of Stuff is a documentary feature film on the economies of repurposing, upscaling, and technological recycling in the US Southwest. This film connects the dots between contemporary alternative lifestyles built around foraging, picking, and repurposing, in a region molded by climate change, human migration, the military-industrial complex, inequality and contested sovereignties. The film travels from Rocky Mountain peaks to saguaro cactus forests in the Sonoran Desert, and from the neon lights of Denver’s Broadway to the edge of the Tohono O'odham Nation at the US-Mexico border, in search for the histories of people who can appreciate the value of things that others simply pass by. Supported from an ERC Consolidator grant "Foraging at the Edges of Capitalism" at the Rachel Carson Center - Ludwig Maximilian University Munich.
Artist Bios
Toma Peiu is a filmmaker, visual artist, media scholar and educator, presently pursuing a PhD in Emergent Technologies and Media Arts Practices at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he also teaches foundational coursework in media and anthropology. Toma's work as an artist confounds with his scholarly interests in identifying new modes of expression by engaging technology of various generations and theory inhabiting various disciplinary spaces across the arts and (social) sciences. A fellow of the Center for Media, Religion and Culture and a researcher at CU Boulder, he explores identity formation in diasporic communities and the shaping of the environment and public urban space as an archive for culture, memory and social affirmation. For his dissertation, working across anthropology, georgraphy, media studies and critical media practices, Toma looks at how migration, mobility and borders transform adopted spaces and communities of origin, spending time between field sites in Brooklyn, NY and Central Asia. He holds an MA in Media Studies from The New School University in New York, and a bachelor's in Screenwriting and Film Studies from The National University of Dramatic Arts and Film in Bucharest, Romania.
Luiza Parvu is a filmmaker, visual artist, and educator based in Tempe, AZ. She is a member of the European Film Academy. She holds an MFA in Film Production from New York University - Tisch School of the Arts. She is an experienced media maker with professional working knowledge of all areas of production and post-production. Her directing and editing work covers a variety of genres, in both fiction and creative non-fiction: documentary, multimedia installation, and immersive media. Luiza's art and research explore identity, memory, intersection and transformation. Her collaborations with scientists, ethnographers, filmmakers and mixed media artists cross space, time and themes - from connecting contemporary and historical stories of labor migration (Start Anew World; Seven Scenes from a Neighborhood Cafe; Ubi Bene Ibi Patria) to questioning the nature of images that shape the anthropocenic everyday (Sisyphus 2.0; Redemption Room) and observing human and non-human ecosystems facing environmental precarity (Migrant Water; Arabidopsis thaliana, The Salt In Our Waters). The award winning films she has directed or edited so far have been recognized in film festivals and events worldwide such as Karlovy Vary, Sundance, BFI London, Busan, Transilvania, Tribeca or Abu Dhabi.