Scandinavian Film & TV: August 2024

While I in last month’s column focused on the climate change narrative in a new Danish drama series, I’m staying in a similar area for this month’s column as I look at an award-winning Danish short documentary. And then again, not exactly.

In the artistic stunning Letter to a Cycad, a tribute to the Botanical Garden in Copenhagen, viewers are taken on a 360-degree journey back in time, in the company of the botanist Frederik Liebmann (1813-1856) at an expedition to Mexico in 1842, where Dioon edule, the current oldest plant in the Botanical Garden, was discovered.

In the just 6-minute-long documentary, Liebmann’s fictive voice tells the story of the plants’ journey from Mexico to Copenhagen and connects it to a poetic story about the evolution of plants and how humans impact nature.

Photo: Statens Naturhistoriske Museum

The film is sponsored by the University of Copenhagen and is a co-production between the Natural History Museum of Denmark (a unit of the University of Copenhagen) and the production company Dark Matters. Since it was produced in 2021, it has received several international awards with the most significant being Webby Awards and Lovie Awards.

Denmark is taking this film to Paris and using it to showcase Danish botanical history in the Danish Pavilion during the Olympic Games Paris 2024 which runs from 26 July to 11 August. If you are not planning a trip to the Olympic Games this summer, you can see it for free on YouTube.

Anders Drud Jordan, producer of Letter to a Cycad, who is also head of exhibitions and digital at the Natural History Museum, believes the beautiful filmmaking will reach a wide audience as well as showcasing our excitement for the natural world.

Photo: Statens Naturhistoriske Museum

Films can be a beautiful tool to tell a message and a specific story. Used in the right way it can be immense and powerful regardless of length. Often the most artistic and visually stunning films never make it to a big audience on the basic fact that the format is not quite right.

If Letter to a Cycad results in visits to the Botanical Garden to see the Dioon edule, the filmmakers could declare the film to be a success.

Anders Lorenzen is a Danish blogger and film and TV enthusiast living in London.