There are many lessons to be learned in Sylive Rokab’s lyrical film, LOVE THY NATURE, but if you take away only one, it should be that a few minutes communing with nature will not just lift your spirits, it will also make you healthier. Even if you are just sitting. We share more than we think with trees, and a moment like that can’t help but change one’s paradigm when it comes to thinking about our place in the scheme of things. What sets Rokab’s documentary about the environment apart is its sense of joy and of wonder in the natural world and our place in it. Which is not to say it mitigates what she terms the nature holocaust in progress because of human impact. Rather, her film chooses to focus on solutions, and the benefits derived therefrom by changing our way of thinking about our place in the universe. Part science doc, part spiritual celebration, LOVE THY NATURE is a visual feast with a strong, compassionate message.
Sylvie Rokab, San Francisco, CA 4/14/16
When we talked on April 14, 2015, Rokab explained the common sense of biomimicry, using nature as the model for technology, filmmaking as a spiritual practice, finding the right composer, and directing Liam Neeson, who provides the narration for her film.
LOVE THY NATURE is her uplifting documentary about the joy of working with nature, not against it. Using lyrical imagery, commentary by thinkers who have a different way of looking at our relationship to the natural world, and narration by the personification of our species itself, the documentary considers the provocative idea that nature might know more than we do, and that there is more than just wisdom in letting it take the lead. Rokab’s film addresses the current environmental crisis with a hopeful call to action, and a with a sumptuous visual feast celebrating of just what’s at stake. Rokab directed from a script she co-wrote with Fernanda Rossi.
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