Blackwater Mouth Tollesbury Creek Jumping Ladz

8mm Film (30 mins)

A filthy love letter to Essex, like you’ve never seen it before. In a village at the end of the road, teenage boys smothered in black mud, run wild through the vast salt marshes in a bizarre tradition hundreds of years old - ‘creek-jumping’. Covid has heightened anxiety about cleanliness - it is a social taboo to be dirty. These teenagers throw mud in the face of social norms (literally). In this extraordinary landscape, ritually transformed by the tide, they race through the creek, hurl themselves into the sea and muse on strange local myths - Cannibalism! Shipwrecks! Nuclear power explosions! As the brink of adulthood approaches they struggle to imagine their uncertain futures but they know just how to live in the present - shoes off, mud between the toes, sun burning down, hearts thumping…

Film by Tilly Shiner
Cinematography Jon Muschamp
Sound House of Noise
Music Gold Panda & Infinite Livez
Graphic Design work-form
Supported by Arts Council England