Salt Sisters
ABOUT
Off the coast of Maine, America’s addiction and environmental crises meet at a crossroads as female lobsterman, Colleen Francke, leads a team of women building a seaweed farm in Casco Bay. Caught in the midst of a struggling fishing industry impacted by global warming, Colleen attempts to get ahead of the inevitable changes and return to a dream she thought she lost during years of alcohol abuse - running a seaweed farm that will employ and support other women in substance use recovery. Facing opposition from local fishermen, risking financial stability, and fighting through her own recovery journey, Colleen will discover what it takes to lead these women into a new coastal economy – rehabilitating both the water and themselves along the way. In addition to witnessing the laborious yet beautiful task of seaweed farming, we’ll follow Colleen as she navigates the challenges of employing women in recovery as well as the complicated bureaucratic process of leasing two adjacent 100-acre farms. If granted, Colleen will have the largest seaweed farm in Maine and secure the future of the Salt Sisters program. This process puts her at odds with local lobstermen who, enraged by fear that she is another threat to their dwindling income, will do anything to keep Colleen from expanding her farms. After a few of the women fall back into the cycle of addiction, Colleen is challenged with maintaining the farm over the winter months with little support. Unbeknownst to her, the country would soon face an upending pandemic, forcing her to harvest the seaweed prematurely. It is in these moments we witness Colleen’s strength and determination to maintain sobriety. The farm is proof to herself and the women she leads, that the things they thought they lost in addiction are not gone. Acknowledging this weight, Colleen must find a way for the farm to succeed. After two years of developing a deep, trusting relationship with Colleen and witnessing my commitment to filming, she has given me exclusive rights to film the story of the Salt Sisters. In order to imbue the film with a sense of Colleen’s agency, we have trained her to use GoPro cameras to film her journey from her own perspective. Mixing confessional type moments directed at camera with mounted shots, we hope to capture the nuance of her journey pushing beyond a prescriptive story about addiction or the environment. Focusing on the environmental crisis and recovery from substance use disorder, Salt Sisters investigates the intersectionality of two seemingly disparate “American Stories” from the often overlooked perspective of women enmeshed in both fights. Colleen and the Salt Sisters’ experience at the intersection of femininity, sobriety, and the environment speaks to the larger narrative of female empowerment that is finding an amplified voice in our cultural context. By bringing women’s voices to the forefront, Salt Sisters will break through stereotypes of the recovery community as well as showcase women as aquacultural pioneers in an American coastal economy facing the disastrous effects of climate change.