Fourteen-year-old William Capellan loves to spend time outdoors. His uncle is a boat builder, but William prefers rowing boats to building them. Twice a week after school, he makes the trek to Rocking the Boat, a youth development program in the South Bronx where he learns to collect water quality data along the banks of the Bronx River.
His classmate, 16-year-old Nani Reyes, is already plotting an environmental revolution. Two years into Rocking the Boat’s program, Nani is ready to launch her environmental career and take on more responsibility as a steward of the Bronx River.
Stay the Course follows William and Nani as they navigate adolescence and learn skills that may change everything they thought they knew about themselves. Once seen as a symbol of decay and still afflicted with pollution, the Bronx River is now an urban oasis where dreams about the future keep rolling with the tide.
Following a competitive open call for films that explore the outdoors and access to nature, filmmakers Teresa Cebrián Aranda and Mariel Rodriguez-McGill were selected as finalists to pitch Stay the Course at DOC NYC, America's largest documentary film festival.
