Pulitzer Prize-Winning Filmmaker David Abel Returns to WHPAC with New Documentary “Inundation District”

The Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center is thrilled to announce the Long Island premiere of the award-winning documentary Inundation District on November 2 at 7pm. The evening will also feature a post-screening discussion with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and filmmaker, David Abel, which will be moderated by veteran critic and journalist Andrew Botsford. “Bringing David Abel back to the WHBPAC after the stellar turnout for his previous documentary In the Whale is an exciting event for WHBPAC Film,” said WHBPAC Executive Director Julienne Penza-Boone.

The film takes aim at the city of Boston, a place Abel is all too familiar with as both a journalist for the Boston Globe and as a professor at Boston University. The film raises awareness about the era of rising seas and strengthening storms, and its impact on coastal communities. Known as one of the world’s wealthiest and most-educated cities, Boston’s local government made the fateful decision to spend billions of dollars erecting a new district, the Boston Seaport, along its coast on landfill, and at sea level. Unlike other places imperiled by climate change, this neighborhood of glass towers housing some of the world’s largest companies was built well after scientists began warning of the threats. Boston, which already has more high-tide flooding than any other in the United States, called its new quarter the Innovation District. But with seas rising at an accelerating rate, others are calling the neighborhood by a different name: Inundation District.

Former Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino launched the Innovation District in January 2010 as Boston’s welcome mat for entrepreneurs. Based on the notion that proximity and density are key contributors to business productivity, Menino aimed to create a place where the best ideas and brightest entrepreneurs would come together to strengthen one another. The economy was beginning to rebound from the recession at the time the initiative was launched, and many small businesses and start-up companies were looking for space to locate and grow. With its mix of work spaces (i.e. office, industrial, research, convention, etc.) and relatively affordable real estate, the Innovation District offered an attractive home for companies across a variety of sectors. Creating the Innovation District was a chance to add to and support Greater Boston’s innovation economy.

However, the Seaport was artificial land built with sand, rocks, and trash along the South Boston waterfront. It piqued Abel’s interest when he saw how the city spent billions of dollars building up an area that is likely to experience disproportionately higher sea levels than the rest of the world. “What made me feel like this was an urgent story to tell was that I’d been writing about all these reports, year after year, about how our sea levels were rising, and with each report, it the predictions were getting significantly worse ,” says Abel. Boston tides could rise four to seven feet by 2100 and as much as 55 feet by 2200, without significant cuts to carbon emissions, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

Abel wanted to tell the story of how a city with perhaps more climate scientists per capita than any other decided to spend so much money building an entirely new urban district at sea level and on the coast. The Seaport has seen most of its development in the last five to ten years, he adds. “It was built at a time when we were well aware of the risks of rising sea levels and greater storm surges from climate change,” Abel says. Today, opinions on the Innovation District are mixed, with some people viewing it as a positive force for economic growth and innovation, while others express concerns about rising costs of living, gentrification, and a lack of community, in addition to the environmental concerns at the center of Inundation District.

The film, produced by The Boston Globe, was written, directed, and filmed by Abel, also a reporter at the Globe for more than 20 years. He worked with animator and editor Tom Blanco to put the rest of the film together over the past two years. Working in the documentary medium is challenging sometimes, Abel says, when it comes to balancing what is compelling to the viewer without bombarding them with too many facts or statistics. “But I’m also trying to provide enough of that, so that viewers are getting sufficient substance to appreciate the gravity of the problems facing our city,” he says.

The evening will feature a Q+A and discussion with Pulitzer Prize winning writer and filmmaker David Abel, a New York native, following the screening, moderated by veteran critic and writer Andrew Botsford. Tickets can be purchased at whbpac.or