A budding, forbidden romance lays bare the tensions between two black communities, both descended from slaves but of disparate opportunity—the light-skinned, property-owning Creoles and the darker-skinned, more disenfranchised families of the area.

“Trouble the Water” takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. The film opens the day before the storm makes landfall–just blocks away from the French Quarter but far from the New Orleans that most tourists knew. Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, is turning her new video camera on herself and her Ninth Ward neighbors trapped in the city. Weaving an insider’s view of Katrina with a mix of verité and in-your-face filmmaking, it is a redemptive tale of self-described street hustlers who become heroes–two unforgettable people who survive the storm and then seize a chance for a new beginning.

When young newlyweds Julia and Rivers find themselves trapped in a quaint, Carolina coastal bed and breakfast with fellow stragglers during a dangerous hurricane, they soon begin to suspect they are being haunted by the legendary ghost of Alice Flagg.