SALT + EARTH: The Nettle Dress + Haulout + Q&A
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Join us for an evening of two films from land and sea about surviving in the face of spectacular challenges from life and nature, followed by a Q&A with Nettle Dress director Dylan Howitt and protagonist Allan Brown
The Nettle Dress (Director - Dylan Howitt)
A modern-day fairytale and hymn to the healing power of nature and slow craft.
Textile artist Allan Brown spends seven years making a dress by hand, using only the fibre of locally foraged stinging nettles. This is ‘hedgerow couture’, the greenest of slow fashion. It’s also the medicine that helps him survive the death of his wife, which leaves him and their four children bereft, and how he finds a beautiful way to honour her.
'Grasping the Nettle' is at the heart of it. Making a dress this way becomes devotional, with every thread representing hours of loving attention. Over seven years Allan is transformed by the process as much as the nettles are. The challenge of making zero carbon clothing means re-learning ancient crafts: foraging, spinning, weaving, cutting and sewing. Finally the dress is worn by one of his daughters, back in the woods where the nettles were picked.
‘Exquisite and inspiring, beautiful and helpful for anyone suffering loss or grief.’
Sir Mark Rylance
+ Haulout (Directors - Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev)
On a remote coast of the Russian Arctic in a wind-battered hut, a lonely man waits to witness an ancient gathering. But warming seas and rising temperatures bring an unexpected change, and he soon finds himself overwhelmed.
Presented by Folkestone Documentary Festival