Been Here, Stay Here - Mar-Va Theater

Been Here Stay Here is a quiet, immersive portrait of Tangier Island, a centuries-old Christian fishing community in Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay. Long used as a symbol in the national climate conversation, Tangier is often portrayed through a lens of skepticism or scorn—framed as “America’s first climate casualty” and written off as a place in denial.

This film offers another way in. With no experts, voiceovers, or statistics, Been Here Stay Here invites viewers into the lived experience of the island’s residents—through faith, memory, and the rhythms of daily life. By stepping away from spectacle and alarm, the film allows the community to speak on its own terms, revealing not denial but devotion: to place, to faith, and to a way of life that refuses easy categorization.

At its heart, the film is about what it means to belong to a disappearing place. The island has lost more than two-thirds of its landmass since the 1850s. Water laps at doorsteps. Graves fall into the sea. But the people stay—tethered by spirituality, generational memory, and a quiet stewardship rarely recognized by mainstream environmental discourse.