With winter well and truly upon us and long, dark nights to fill, it felt remiss to only give you one ‘Watch This’ recommendation this issue. So here’s a few stellar watches we’ve stumbled across over the last couple of months that could help you make good use of your evening viewing. All focused around the challenges we’re facing as a society and planet, but each with a side of optimism served up too. So, settle down with a drink and enjoy. Better times could be just around the bend…
Trailblazing fashion designer Amy Powney of cult label Mother of Pearl is on a mission to rethink fashion. Raised off-grid in rural England, her story couldn’t be further removed from the world of fashion she launched into back in the noughties. But she didn’t let that stop her. Winning the coveted Vogue award for best Young Designer of the Year in 2017, she decided to use the money to create a truly sustainable collection from field to fibre to finished garment, and transform her entire business in the process. The film follows Amy and her team over three years as she attempts to make her dream a reality, unravelling the challenges and barriers at the heart of the industry and desperately trying to find ways to overcome them. What starts as a personal story of struggle and change, becomes an uplifting story of fashion revolution that we can all be a part of.
In Strike issue 8, we went down a rabbit hole exploring our broken food and farming systems, and meeting some brilliant people working tirelessly to grow better, fairer, cleaner, healthier, climate-fixing ways of feeding ourselves. It really opened our eyes to a topic we’ve been obsessed with ever since – so were excited to see this new film from Cornwall Climate Care focusing on fixing food systems closer to home.
Hungry for Change is presented by forager Joshua Quick who takes us on a fascinating and inspiring journey around Cornwall to meet people working on ways to ‘do food better’ as the climate changes – from the gleaners picking ‘waste’ crops in our fields to projects growing food in unusual places, and a microbiologist keen to get us all eating low-carbon insects. You can watch the full film (30 mins) here now, and find out more over on the Hungry for Change page.
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Keeping it close to home for this one, KELP! (directed by Falmouth University Marine and Natural History Photography graduate Caylon La Mantia and recently winning ‘Best UK Short’ at the BIG SYN International Film Festival) showcases the fast-growing super-solution to absorbing carbon being farmed around the UK’s rugged coastline.
A motley crew journeys to meet pioneering ‘kelpers’ and innovative businesses harnessing the green stuff’s powerful properties. Uplifting and solution focused, the film shows kelp in a whole new light. From replacing plastic packaging (with the experts in material science at NotPla) to regenerating our oceans and empowering communities, Kelp! is guaranteed to lift you out of that existential dread. For a little while at least…