Kumu Documentary: Wilding
Dir David Allen
United Kingdom 2023, 75 min
In English
Introduction by Aveliina Helm, Professor of Restoration Ecology (University of Tartu) and Scientific Advisor to the Minister of Climate.
Based on a bestseller by Isabella Tree, Wilding is the inspirational story of an English country estate that joins the rewilding revolution and thrives.
When Isabella’s husband, Charlie, inherited the 1,400-hectare Knepp estate in West Sussex, the land was plainly suffering after decades of intensive farming. Transforming it wasn’t going to be easy: as well as noxious weeds, the family faced unsympathetic neighbours and time-consuming bureaucracy. David Allen’s film follows their journey, capturing the triumphs and setbacks and ultimately revealing a place transformed with ancient breed pigs, flower-filled hedgerows, busy beavers, rare storks and magical swarms of butterflies.
The cinematography by BAFTA and Emmy award winners Tim Cragg and Simon de Glanville is appropriately glorious, and the film practically breathes with renewed life.
