Woven in Time: The Narragansett Salt Pond Preserve

Woven in Time: The Narragansett Salt Pond Preserve, is a documentary about the only surviving and recently preserved pre-contact (1100-1400) Native American village on the New England coast. A film of extraordinary beauty and poetry, Woven in Time is a story of 'place' - how land and spirit are interwoven and how uncovering this village could lead to a shared stewardship for this beautiful and bountiful territory of marshes, ponds, oceans and forests. 

Rhode Island PBS presents Woven in Time: The Narragansett Salt Pond Preserve on Sunday, November 22 at 6 p.m. as part of the ongoing Rhode Island PBS series, Rhode Island Stories. The film will encore Tuesday, November 24 at 8 p.m. on WSBE Learn.

This land, used for dirt biking and adjacent to a suburban housing development and shopping center, is on a pond in Point Judith, Narragansett, where the Narragansett people place their origins story. In the 1980s, archaeologists unearthed the remains of a centuries old village that managed to survive 'untouched' in a highly built section of the Rhode Island coast. The parcel then became the center of an almost 30-year battle between the right of property ownership and the social and cultural importance of preserving one of the most important archaeological sites on the East Coast of the United States. 

Funded by the Rhode Island Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, the Woven in Time film project does not shrink from the harsh relational reality - and ultimate cooperation - between the state of Rhode Island and the Narragansett.

Filmmaker Marc Levitt spent a year and a half interviewing more than 50 people from the Narragansett, state government officials and political figures, archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and local citizens. He has constructed the film in the same 'narrator free' style he employed in his first documentary, Stories in Stone. 

Featuring drone photography, animation, music drawn from Rhode Island, national and international sources - including a recurring theme by the well known avant-garde composer, Moondog - Woven in Time is a lyrical, thoughtful and beautifully realized exploration of what it means to be 'from' somewhere. 

Woven in Time: The Narragansett Salt Pond Preserve is directed and produced by Marc Levitt, with animation by Dennis Hlynsky, edited by Irene Su, Director of Photography Richard Goulis, additional photography by Thomas Payne and Mike Turecamo, drone photography by Kyla and Andrew Trench, and music by both local and international musicians including Campbell Brothers, Phil Edmonds, Hang Massive, Thawn Harris, Steve Jobe, Matt McClaren, Moondog, Jesse Robbins (Red Eagle), Josh Schurman, Cathy Clasper-Torch, and What Cheer Brigade. Frances Bisogno is the sound engineer, and recording took place at Jack Gauthier's Lake West Studio. The Executive Producer is Michael Hébert.

Narragansetts tell their Stories in Stone

From the rhythmic chink of a chisel on granite to the twittering flute over the placid landscape, Stories in Stone casts a mystical enchantment right from the beginning. What follows for the next 26 minutes measures up to – even exceeds – expectations set by the opening.

Stories in Stone is an engaging film about the Narragansett tribal stone masons who, over the last four hundred years, have built many stone walls that wind picturesquely through the woods of southern New England. Interspersing footage that elegantly captures the beauty of the walls with interviews with tribal elders and members of two prominent Narragansett mason families, producers / directors / writers Marc Levitt and Lilach Dekel weave a story that is both poetic and inspirational. In the photo is Russel Spears, one of South County's master stone masons.Filmed in both video and film, Stories in Stone uses scenic footage and original music to express both the traditional and contemporary aspects of this craft. With no central narrator, Stories in Stone allows the Narragansett to tell their own story.

Stories in Stone began filming in 2002 as a result of Marc Levitt’s enduring interest in stone walls of southern New England. Marc first wrote a story about a stone wall mason in 1983. He conducted oral histories with stone masons at a local storytelling festival in 1986. He worked on a joint photographic/oral history project about the masons of South County, Rhode Island, in 2000 with photographer Mathias Oppersdorff. Now, Marc shares with a wider audience his interest and passion for the walls and their builders.