Joe Jordan

A community of dreamers scavenge the Thames mud in search of meaning. 

If your crossing of the ancient Thames coincides with the bi-daily low tide you may wonder where the rattling and scraping sounds are coming from. You may be so curious that you peer over the edge of London Bridge to look down on the murky water below. Dotted along the foreshore you will see a sporadic number of knee padded, mud covered individuals with trowels and metal detectors in hand. These are the Mudlarkers. In this atmospheric documentary short we examine the otherworldly hobby of the mudlark exploring the foreshore; its age is evident in the artefacts that lay around us. Pottery, coins, bones and weapons of a time gone by. But as we discover, this curious pastime attracts those searching for more than just buried treasure. As they turn over rocks, dig up mud and scrape away at the rubble they inadvertently unearth themselves.

A film by Joe Jordan and Deelo Arizona.

In October 2022 I was made aware of the crowdfunding efforts being made by a small village in the rural High Atlas Mountains of Morocco called Oubaki. My understanding of the story was that they were raising money to build a school and co-operative for the women and children of the village so as to prevent children as young as four walking ten kilometers everyday to school without adequate footwear. To help them, I began to film a documentary with the hope that upon its release it would bring some much needed funding to the village.

What was quickly apparent upon my arrival was the root cause for such neglect; corruption. The local mayor had been buying ‘votes’ with flour for years and funneling any funding the Moroccan government had been giving the area directly into his pockets. The people of the Moulay Brahim region had been deciding between democracy or starvation. My contributors were at pains to mention this, fearing repercussions. Many interviews are linguistically encrypted and my translator’s reluctance to decipher answers has reinforced my perspective that these people are enduring a government of secrecy and oppression. The village’s economy is suffering as climate change is causing less rainfall annually triggering a depression in agricultural based income. What were once green rolling hills are now desolate plains of dust. Where there was once an abundance of resources is now bleak and inhospitable. Swathes of children are leaving the village in search of work in the cities as the underfunded education leads to dwindling job prospects. As a result, older generations are left abandoned in their stone houses that fail to prevent any form of weather. The clear tragedy to me is that all of these issues are killing a cherished and traditional way of life.

It is a well known fact that the education of girls in third world countries is one of the best ways to fight climate change. ‘Wherever women have the vote, wherever girls stay in school for longer, wherever women are in charge of their own lives and not dictated to by men, wherever they have access to good healthcare and contraception, wherever they are free to take any job and their aspirations for life are raised, the birth rate falls. The reason for this is straightforward - empowerment brings freedom of choice and when life offers more options for women, their choice is often to have fewer children.’ And resultantly we will reach lower peak human sooner.

The building of the preschool will provide education and jobs to the women and children of Oubaki and the co-operative will allow for a space to generate a new source of income. And in doing so we will help combat a much bigger issue facing all of us.

In my mind there should not be any reason the building should not go ahead.

Yet, at every step of the process the people of Oubaki have been met with brick walls of bribery, wrapped in red tape or literally halted in their path with unmoving vehicles. These issues have bled into my roll. I too have been unable to get filming permits and return to pick up the story where I left off.

‘A Place For Us,’ is an initial treatment, a blueprint for what I aim to produce in the future. Containing just three of the fifteen interviews I conducted, not touching on the element of corruption and being book ended with links to the just giving page, which as of May 2023 has only reached 40% of it’s goal of £15,000, is severely uncompleted.

Any help regarding planning permission in Morocco, filming permits and documentary film grants or fellowships would be greatly appreciated. And if you would like to donate please visit my website.

A film by Joe Jordan.

A poetic short documentary that merges film and photography to chronicle the story of the man cultivating a safe space within the Worcestershire wood.

A film by Joe Jordan.