Dear supporters,

De Ceuvel was created by a team of architects, cleantech experts, builders and scores of volunteers who made the dream of a self-sufficient creative environment come to life. We filmed the process from the very beginning and now we need your help to turn this material into a beautiful documentary!

About De Ceuvel

In 2012, the municipality put out a tender for a polluted piece of land in Amsterdam North that was formerly used as a shipyard, Ceuvel-Volharding. A group of architects won the tender with a concept to crane old houseboats onto the land and clean the soil using plants. Over the last two years, the site defied expectations and became a unique workspace for environmental and creative organizations.

The Documentary

Urban Tides is a film about this group of people who felt like they were becoming estranged from their essential needs such as water, light, food and shelter. In early 2012 they saw an opportunity to get back in touch with these needs by remediating the grounds of De Ceuvel and creating an inspiring office park with ambitious sustainability objectives.

De Ceuvel has a lot to say about a society where people want to be less dependent on the government, seek ways to address the growing issue of climate change, and find new opportunities for utilizing their talents.

The film tells the story of the construction - from the idea to use old houseboats to the realization of a remediating garden. Urban Tides also tells the larger story of how our cities are changing. What is the role of citizens in urban development? How do we design cities that minimize environmental impact and increase community cohesion? How do public utility companies see the future? Urban Tides answers these questions through the lens of De Ceuvel and through interviews with stakeholders involved in the future of the city. The documentary will be released late spring 2015.

We need your help!

The money raised with this crowdfunding campaign will go towards the finalizing of the documentary. We have all worked on the documentary on a voluntary basis, but we need a final financial boost to make the film into a professional documentary.

For this we ask your help! For ten euros you can buy a download of the movie, or you can purchase any of the other rewards. We’re grateful for your support we get! If you’d rather not donate, you can help us by sharing this project with as many people as possible, let’s get the word out!

The money raised will be used for professional sound mixing, editing and color grading, and music. We aim to screen Urban Tides at national and international film festivals to stimulate discussions about the future of urban development.

Who are we?

Chris Monaghan, Cynthia Mooij and Simone Eleveld came together to make this film happen. Chris was involved in De Ceuvel from early on and began filming the process from the beginning. Simone is an aspiring filmmaker from Amsterdam who fell in love with the project. Both Chris and Cynthia are managing Metabolic Foundation, which focuses on education about civic entrepreneurship, and social and environmental problems around the world.