In Flux

In Flux tells the story of multiple intertwined stories centered around a river that Taryn Everdeen, an English filmmaker who landed in Arcueil, France, decides to follow as an exercise in thought and openness to the unfamiliar. The concept—simple, poetic, and quietly adventurous—emerges from a circular premise: like the Bièvre, the river in question, this premise nourishes all the questions arising from the filmmaker’s delicate inquiry. Alongside her search for the river’s origin, she explores what it means to feel at home in a country that is not one’s own. Far from static, the river serves as both a narrative approach and a slow metaphorical movement. With a path marked by appearances and disappearances—through underground passages and rediscovered flows—the Bièvre becomes a witness to intersecting lives, reflecting relationships with the land and migratory journeys.

In Arcueil, the filmmaker first meets Thierry, a postcard collector, and Christian, a university professor. Following the river’s flow, she arrives in Antony, another town along the Bièvre, where she encounters a man sitting on a bench. He explains that much of the Bièvre runs underground. Off-camera, he opens up further: his name is Idir, of Kabyle origin, and he shares a tender memory of his late wife, whose eyes were green-blue—a confession delicately narrated by the filmmaker’s voice-over. The Bièvre then leads her to the small community of Café Le Balto, where regulars of Algerian, Chilean, and Moldovan origins share fragments of their lives. Soraya, the wife of Fadir, the café owner, adds her reflections on the river. In Bièvres, the town named after the river, the filmmaker meets Pascaline, Eric, and Hichem, a motorcycle delivery driver who doesn’t know where the river has gone but asks warmly: “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

Through the Bièvre, the filmmaker uncovers these found lives, which she approaches with her camera, whether on or off, creating a subtle poetics of connection and chance that reflects diaristic solitude, the human significance of fleeting encounters, and the fluidity of identity.

Maude Trottier
Editor-in-Chief, Hors champ magazine