Interview with the film “ lost for words ” on nature, Language: Sheffield Do DOSFEST

After the revisions of the Dictionary of Oxford Junior, a widely used children’s dictionary, led to the deletion of words like a nature such as “acorn”, “bluebell” and “otter” in favor of words such as “attachment”, “broadband” and “vocal bite”, the writer Robert Macfarlane and the illustrator Jackie Morris with their book Robert Macfarlane and Illustrator Jackie Morris with their book » Lost words:: A spell book (2017). This helped create a broader discussion and protest against the loss of nature itself, as well as a celebration of creatures and plants that share the planet with humans.

The beginnings of director of Hannah Papacek Harper, Lost for wordsthat she also written and who obtained her first in the United Kingdom in the Sheffield Dockfest on Saturday, was inspired by the book.

The documentary, which was presented worldwide at the CPH: Dox in Copenhagen, presents a cinematography of Tess Barthes and the edition of Becky Manson. It is a rare visual, audio and musical experience that takes the public during a trip through nature and thought. “This poetic journey through language and the landscape explores how reconnection with the vocabulary disappearing from nature can help us reinvent our future with hope,” notes a synopsis of Dockfest Sheffield.

Papacek Harper and Retrovisor Productions manage sales on the project. Look at the trailer for Lost for words below.

After completing a undergraduate program in cinema at the Sorbonne Panthéon in Paris, Papacek Harper obtained an audiovisual communication diploma at the University of Lima, Peru, and now works in cinema and what it calls “sensitive cartography”.

“”Lost for words was born from a desire to connect, understand and feel nature in a creative way, “she said in a declaration of a director.” I wanted to find this childhood wonder which can make an action engaged again. »»

Inspiration for the film occurred during the cocovated pandemic and its locking. “I had the chance to go into exile with my parents where I grew up in the French countryside, and I created a little ritual to maintain the connection and the order,” recalls the director. There, she listed Matthew Bannister’s Podcast “Folk on Foot”, in which he meets the folk musicians through the United Kingdom, takes them to walks, discusses music, then makes them do music. One of the shows included Jackie Morris, the illustrator aforementioned to Lost words.

“So I started reading it,” said Papacek Harper THR. “And they made an online online festival to collect funds for all artists who could not work during locking.

It was the first inspiration for the film, as well as the basic idea that “if you cannot name something, you can’t worry about it,” she shares. “There was really something much more tender than we miss in a large part of the work we are trying to bring to environment.”

This is why the film mentions shocking information on the impact of humans on nature, but the filmmaker did not face viewers with too much data. In his conversations with scientists, “it was clear that there was a thirst to find new ways to bring their data to the public, because it is very clear that we have exceeded the breakdown,” explains Papacek Harper. “We have had the figures for a very long time, but how do we get emotionally with the public so that they feel that they are linked to these figures?” So, I didn’t want to overwhelm them with environmental information. In the end, you may feel that we are too informed, but what we do not necessarily have is this empathetic commitment. ” It was there that she saw a key role for the film.

She and her colleagues filmmakers strive to “make empathic tools in a world where empathy decreases daily,” said Papacek Harper, highlighting two forms of empathy. “There is immediate emotional empathy, then there is cognitive empathy. Cognitive empathy really requires that you engage with a subject, ”she explains. “And to allow people to engage with the subject, it is important to count on emotional connection and poetry touching them throughout the film.”

The film also acknowledges that there is a climate crisis, but tries to avoid having free -fear viewers. “We have to take into account the crisis. We cannot put it aside, but I was looking for a way for us to get out of this space, ”explains Papacek Harper. “He feeds climate anxiety, as opposed to putting people in a position from which they can act. Thus, the film focuses on the idea that by putting people in a place where they fear, but they also feel that they are in a space connected with the natural world and the human world, and with each other, they can act for the climate and the climate. “

Music and sound play a key role in Lost for words. The composer Leonie Floret and Sound of Julie Marechal, Florian Vourlat, Kirsty Howell, Cassandra Rutledge, Heather Andrews and Zoë Irvine create a sound landscape which often gives you the feeling of being in nature or brings you closer to nature, thanks to interpreted music. “We wanted to create this immersive sound that invites you to the landscape and makes you pack,” says Papacek Harper THR.

A recurring element in Lost for words Children discuss nature and loss. “Some of the richest parts of filming spent time with the children and realized how children think of the things we do not expect to think,” said the filmmaker. “But if you give them a microphone, they have a lot to say, and they actually say some of the most touching things. I was going to see some scientists and researchers and artists while they would have the really constructive reflection process. But in the end, everyone arrives at the same conclusion.

Papacek Harper is working on various new projects and creative ideas. “Like most community filmmakers, I still work in projects, some focusing on the same type of subject,” she said THR. “One of them is a film that I make with my mother, which concerns hope, and it will be in the Scottish Forest Conservation Project.”

Another part of his work aims to look at the feeling of belonging to the world. “It’s no longer a hybrid approach to cinema,” explains the filmmaker. “It is a question of breaking and trying to find a place in a world too connected where we feel completely desperate most of the time. Much of the reflection process behind what I do is how we can have a feeling of an agency. But also, what do we do with this power? There must be a little humility in the mixture. “