Venice Underwater

This observational documentary presents Venice as a city inundated with tourists as well as periodic bouts of high water. The tourists take pictures, and endure the flooded areas of Piazza San Marcos. On the canals, tourists ride in gondolas while workers collect the garbage, and others deliver building materials. In the fog we approach the Rialto Bridge and then move on towards Saluti. Here a ritual procession is in progress, an event held every year since 1643 when the plague ended. People light candles to remember ancestors in the church of Santa Maria del Saluti while children hold helium balloons of colorful characters.

And here, no tourists are present.

—Chip Lord