On par with Cannes, at least for plant lovers, Suffolk’s Lancaster Farms brings you its PlantPop Film Festival.
If you’re thinking “Little Shop of Horrors” plus more, this isn’t that.
PlantPop celebrates short documentary films related to ornamental horticulture. It’s the brainchild of Art Parkerson, owner of Lancaster Farms, a wholesale container nursery in Bennetts Creek. The Virginia Tech graduate is also the creative director of PlantPop, a horticultural film studio that showcases the magic behind people connecting with plants.
The majority of the niche audience that awaits PlantPop every year is those folks who fill their homes and gardens with beautiful flowering plants.
“We’re also trying to reach those who might not understand the plant thing,” said Laura Christian, a producer at PlantPop who has a hand in many of the films commissioned inhouse. “We want the spouse of the gardener to be excited about plants. We want to tap into the soul of plants and how they impact people’s lives and businesses.”
PlantPop flies in filmmakers and judges from around the globe to be part of its special weekend that starts with a private event at Norfolk Botanical Gardens on Nov. 14. This year’s film festival will be held at 7 p.m. on Nov. 15 at the Michael & Kimthanh Lê Planetarium at Old Dominion University. Patrons are invited back to Lancaster Farms afterward for an afterparty.
One of the films will be selected as the overall winner and prizes will be awarded for additional categories.
Most of the films were commissioned by PlantPop, though for the first time, public submissions were accepted. The festival will culminate with the screening of a time lapse made at Lancaster Farms. A blacked-out garage near the farm’s main offices contains six stations of plants with their own irrigation and inside that studio, grow lights alternate with photo lights at three-minute intervals. A time lapse film is made from the high resolution photos.
The time lapse will be projected on the dome of the planetarium.
“We’ve never done that before,” Christian said. “I’ve seen it a few times and I can attest to there being nothing else like it.”
The Naro hosted the first festival in 2014. The initial PlantPop film focused on Norfolk’s Les Parks, an unapologetic plant geek and garden blogger. From there, the idea of an annual film festival blossomed.
Hayden Blythe is among the locals who never misses a PlantPop Film Festival. As director of Hope for Suffolk, a youth development organization that offers paid internships to youth who learn by working on an organic farm, she sees firsthand how empowering it can be to grow and nurture plants.
“PlantPop is so cool. I’m always wildly impressed,” she said. “The films are so super, so beautiful. Even if it doesn’t make somebody want to be a grower, you’re going to have this time of just being awed.”
Tickets to PlantPop’s Film Festival are $20. For more information and a list of films to be screened, visit PlantPop online.
