Home, Grown
2023 · 12m · United States
Directed by Forest Woodward
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative
Building materials contribute an estimated 5 to 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A 12-minute documentary about growing things at home sounds like the safest premise imaginable—which is exactly why I'd normally pass, except Woodward somehow makes the act of tending feel genuinely subversive, like an argument against the whole extractive way we live.
There's a deliberate formal restraint here that recalls the essay film tradition—patient, observational, aware of documentary's capacity to transform the quotidian into something worthy of sustained attention.
The decision to let silence and the sound of soil, water, growth do the narrative work instead of voiceover or music is what elevates this from a how-to into something meditative; it's a single sound design choice that reframes the entire film.