BY THE RIVER OF BABYLON: AN ELEGY FOR SOUTH LOUISIANA

One of America's most unique cultural crossroads lies below Baton Rouge and along the Mississippi River, down through New Orleans to the Gulf of New Mexico. For 300 years now, successive waves of immigrants, most of them castoffs from other, less forbidding landscapes, have made these marshes, swamps, and plains their homes, and joined into the gumbo of cultures who came before them.

BY THE RIVER OF BABYLON reveals a deep and devastating collision between our intentions and the natural environment of the swamps, and raises some disturbing questions about our 'need' for power and control. Using the astounding variety of South Louisiana's musical traditions, it creates a poignant documentary elegy to one of our richest remaining natural and cultural treasures.

The film features dozens of cultural names familiar throughout the region, such as Paul Marx and Todd Ortego of KBON Radio, the late fiddler Hadley Castille, record producer Floyd Soileau, journalists Bob Marshall and Herman Fuselier and accordion maker Larry Miller. Kevin Courville, Phil Allemond, Jeffery Broussard, Corey Ledet, Cedric Watson and Don Rich are among the featured musicians. Clifton Chenier, Nathan Abshire and the Balfa Brothers and The Uniques perform in archival footage. Rare footage of Beau Jocque performing on Letterman is also included.