Seeing Green
Seeing Green tells the story of three scientific renegades; a botanist, a forester, and a philosopher who listen and learn from plants. Throughout their careers they have pushed boundaries and persevered through controversy. Today the world is finally waking up to their message.
Robin Wall Kimmerer reveals how plant science framed in an Indigenous worldview can create seismic change. With her discovery that trees communicate and collaborate, Suzanne Simard is revolutionizing forestry industry practices globally. While Paco Calvo’s infectious enthusiasm for plants challenges the perception that we humans are the only intelligent life form on earth. In this era of accelerating disasters, can the lessons learned from plants lead us out of the current ecological crisis?
Together Kimmerer, Simard and Calvo offer a bold new perspective that has the power to change how we see the world and our place in it.
Distributed by Game Theory Films in Canada.
Credits
Director-Writer Su Rynard
Executive Producer Nadine Pequeneza
Producers Nadine Pequeneza, Su Rynard, Marieke van den Bersselaar, Carles Brugueras
Director of Photography Sean Stiller
Timelapse Photography Garath Whyte
Still Photography Don Komarechka
Story Consultant Helen Humphreys
Produced by HitPlay Productions and Polar Star Films in association with Telus Independent, Knowledge Network and SRC, with support from the Redford Center, and with the participation of Telefilm Theatrical Documentary Program, CMF POV, ICAA and ICEC, the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation Film and Television Tax Credit.
It is our discontentedness and lost understanding about the amazing capacities of nature that’s driving a lot of our despair, and plants in particular are objects of our abuse… Turning to the intelligence of nature itself is the key.
Mosses take only the little that they need and give back in abundance. Human-designed systems are a far cry from this ongoing creation of ecosystem health, taking without giving back. I hold tight to the vision that someday soon we will find the courage of self-restraint, the humility to live like mosses.
Probably, 95% of plant biologists would reject any association of sentience with plant life. So did I initially. But an investigation of older literature combined with present understanding led me to a more agnostic position.