New Estuary Film

A NEW documentary film, London’s Last Wilderness, directed by Pablo Behrens, captures the Thames Estuary afresh, paying homage to a once-overlooked landscape now celebrated for its wildlife, beauty, and flatland dreaming.
Reflecting on the fragile, ephemeral nature of human civilisation along these shimmering waters, Behrens explores whether the river still holds a wilder side: “We all know the ‘civilised’ side. But does it still have the same mojo as the mighty Amazon?”
In doing so, the film echoes the journey traced in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which begins on the effulgent yet muddy shores of the Thames before slipping out into the wide-open skies over Essex and Kent.
As Conrad’s character Marlow reflects, “we live in the flicker,” while their ship traverses this pivotal gateway—the fluvial route carrying the world into London and out again.
The documentary shows how this crucial area of mudflats, islands, forts, oil refineries, and migrant birds is still as enigmatic and alien, a fact underlined by the film’s use of an unseen explorer who navigates the twice-daily tides and protean bleakness of the land they encounter, taking in history’s eerie traces.
London’s Last Wilderness uses the camera’s recording capacity itself as the explorer’s vision: an innovation foregrounded by the location coordinates flashing on screen through their goggles, offering a fresh pair of eyes on the pull of the moon, coating the crater-like marshlands with salt water twice a day.
Capturing the Thames as this “alien environment”, tracking tides, chasing storms, and filming in all conditions and from multiple vantage points, reveals the constantly shifting moods of the estuary, as well as providing a spotlight for some of the industries and communities that know it best, including Brownes Ventures Ltd, which is operated by Angus Browne out of Leigh.
Angus explains: “It was a great experience being part of the project, working alongside Pablo and his team.
“I’m really looking forward to offering trips to many of the locations featured, giving people the chance to physically explore the same areas highlighted in the documentary and learn more about this incredible stretch of coastline.”
This new perspective was essential to the film, as Pablo explains: “If London’s Last Wilderness had just recorded the landscape, it would’ve failed.
“To understand how the river and the sea interact with each other, you need to go on the surface of the water and live and film from it for a period of time. You need to understand what rules the water.
“I had to take the viewer into a world unlike any other stretch of the Thames,” he added.
The film has already enjoyed premieres at the Prince Charles Cinema and the Genesis Theatre, sparking interest in a major screening coming to Leigh in May or June.
To find out more, visit: https://www.londonslastwilderness.com/
REPORT BY SOPHIE SLEIGH-JOHNSON
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