Cultivating the Wild

Have you ever viewed a landscape and wondered, What did this look like in the past?

Cultivating the Wild is a one-hour documentary that focuses on six Southerners committed to reclaiming the nature of the South through art, science, and culture.

Their inspiration is William Bartram, 18th century naturalist and America’s first environmentalist From 1773 to 1777, a plant-collecting trip took Bartram through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. Far more than a botanical catalog, Bartram’s 1791 book Travels provides a captivating window into the past, continuing to fire the imagination of readers over 200 years later.

Despite the passage of time, Bartram’s words speak to current issues of critical importance: climate change, environmental degradation, preservation of life-giving ecosystems, and an increasingly urban population Cultivating the Wild responds to an America hungry to re-connect with the natural world around us, an America increasingly focused on sustaining this planet we call home.

Often called the South’s Thoreau, Bartram’s reverence for all aspects of nature lies at the heart of these modern environmental movements and in the people we meet in Cultivating the Wild.

Top: Janisse Ray looks on as her pet cow Azalea assists with filming at her farm in Reidsville, Georgia.

Bottom left: filming Drew Lanham on Main Beach, Little St. Simons Island, Georgia.

Bottom right: Philip Juras paints shoals spider lilies (first described by William Bartram) in full bloom at Anthony Shoals, Broad River, Georgia.

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Contact Dorinda Dallmeyer to arrange a screening