A documentary on a citizen science experiment exploring if modern humans can survive on wild-foods, aiming to reconnect us with nature.
by our.wildbiome.documentary in Edinburgh, , United Kingdom
"Your contributions will help extend the length of the film by covering the costs of additional filming needed to complete it, as well as all post-production aspects such as editing and composing a wonderful music score. But most importantly, these funds will be used for marketing and distribution of the film, ensuring that as many people as possible will see 'Our Wildbiome' and maximizing its positive impact."
A group of foragers explore the consequences of living solely off a wild food diet.
This documentary follows a radical citizen science experiment to answer the question “Can modern humans survive solely, as our ancestors did, on freely foraged foods?”
The set-backs and successes of 24 pioneering foragers bring inspiration and understanding of how ordinary people may reverse the damage big food has done to our health, our gut microbiome, our planet and our state of mind.
For an extraordinary year, forager Mo Wilde cut her ties with the global food industry and successfully lived following just a wild food diet. She describes the remarkable changes to her physical and mental health in her award-breaking book 'The Wilderness Cure'. Keen to learn more about the science, Mo asked 24 other foragers to join her in a living experiment to monitor their health, using blood tests and gut microbiome tests, in collaboration with ZOE.
This short film spotlights the varied experiences of 24 UK foragers, across the spring of 2023, whilst they attempt to give up all conventional farmed and processed food. As they reinvent their way of living, transitioning from modern shoppers to ancestral hunter-gatherers, they are transformed both inside and out.
Dan Saladino (The Food Programme, BBC Radio 4) kindly introduced Mo to Professor Tim Spector who researches the gut microbiome at Imperial College London. He offered sponsorship from ZOE The Human Gut Microbiome Project, to provide the gut microbiome tests and monitor blood sugar levels for the project. These tests helped assess the impact on microbiome composition and key health parameters of people eating an exclusively wild food diet.
Documentary film-maker and seasoned forager Carlos Hernan charts the social, psychological and biological changes that occur if we dare to step off the conveyor belt of consumption and reclaim our lost connection with our pre-agricultural heritage.
“We evolved as hunter-gatherers; foraging is in our blood. Yet, our modern diets are so lacking in local wild ingredients that we have changed our gut microbiome with far-reaching consequences. I wanted to illuminate these dark consequences whilst also shining a hopeful light on how we might reclaim this core component of human well-being. I want this film to suggest a future that is healthier and happier by simply reconnecting with a little of our ancestral wisdom.”
Carlos Hernan, film-maker and director
This film shows how taking even one step towards rewilding our diet can set us on a path to a kinder and more connected way to sustain ourselves, with far reaching implications for our health and well-being. Whilst revealing wider truths about how the industrialisation of eating has detached us from Nature, this film inspires us to simply connect with the wild food of our ancestors and take it back into our diet. It also challenges the way that some British conservation practises artificially separate the worlds of humans and plants. It inspires us to reawaken our innate connection with the food we eat and the environments it comes from.
Through the foragers we see our own connection with Nature from a very different point of view; not as outsiders, but as an integral part of it. We see that we can reintegrate ancient ways with our modern lives. We witness the “…connection that we have become estranged from but which we all, deep down, hunger for. This hunger is about much more than food. It is about accepting and understanding our place in a natural network that is both staggeringly complex and beautifully simple.”
Mo Wilde,The Wilderness Cure
Our project is led by a stellar team of multiple-award-winning filmmakers with a boundless passion for
this documentary and years of combined experience in international documentary and fiction feature films.
Carlos Hernan
Director and cinematographer who specialises in wildlife, plants and human interactions with their natural environment.
Sinead Kirwan
Our Consultant Producer is a multiple award-winning producer Sinead Kirwan. With Scottish and Welsh Baftas under her belt, Sinead has a proven track record in backing winning productions.
Lindsay Watson
Editing is in the capable hands of Lindsay Watson. Lindsays passion for creating compelling human stories is well served by her acute aesthetic eye for visual narrative. She is the editor of "Tish" documentary recently screened in cinemas.
Mo Wilde
Research herbalist, pioneering forager, educator and much more. Mo is co-director, narrator and the reason this documentary exists.
Emily Cooney
Our cinematographer and assistant director. Who has a deep understanding about nature and foraging.
To find out more about our team check out the biographies at the bottom of this page.
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It’s no small feat to make a documentary! Even more so to obtain funding for a project with an anti-consumerist ethos like ours… !
You’d think making a food documentary would be straightforward. Having tried every avenue to fund this film we have discovered that the only food stories that make it are the ones that don’t challenge our current system.
In spite of this, we have secured the footage captured of our team as well as self-shot footage of the foragers, with ongoing access to everyone involved.
We invite you to help us to finish editing and distributing this film of hope and inspiration. We need to pay for transport for interviews, cover editing, pay experts and overcome that big-food bias.
Every pound you can help us with brings us a step closer to completing a ‘saleable’ cut of this film.
With this under our belt we then have access to other financing sources that will take us across the finish line. If we raise more than our Kickstarter goal we will gain more independence from outside financing, leaving us even greater creative freedom over the message of hope and change we passionately believe this film offers.
If you read this far, “THANK YOU!” If you can’t help us financially then please do help us by word of mouth and pass our Crowdfunder appeal onto friends, family and anyone else who might support our goal.
Yours wildly,
The Wildbiome Team
Carlos Hernan – Director & Cinematographer
Carlos specialises in documentaries about wildlife, plants and human interactions with their natural environment with a bias towards social relevance.
He has worked for the RSPB as a filmmaker since 2022 alongside several activist, short-film documentaries; winning a SEPA bathing award for Wardie Bar (Edinburgh). He has directed numerous educational videos for Soil Food Web and worked as a cinematographer for LOST WORDS, (Dir. Hannah Papaceck Harper). He took part in ‘Bridging the Gap’ led by the Scottish Doc Institute and was also the cinematographer for ‘THE LOST WAYS (Dir. Kristian Landmark).
Sinead Kirwan - Consultant Producer
In 2021 Sinéad Kirwan made DYING TO DIVORCE with Chloe Fairweather. It won a slew of awards including Best Feature at the Scottish Baftas and Best Breakthrough Film at the Welsh Baftas. The film was film also selected as the UK Entry for Best International Feature to the Oscars, in 2021.
Her other films include: PLAYING THE GAME: GARRY O'CONNOR, a film about mental health for BBC Scotland; the short drama BURN ON ARRIVAL starring Kate Dickie; STILL THE ENEMY WITHIN (Sheffield Doc Fest Audience Award Winner); I DON’T WANT TO CALL IT HOME (her first animation) screened at Edinburgh International Film Festival, Dinard Film Festival and Calcareous Film Festival. Sinead is currently developing an animated feature documentary with director Chloe Fairweather and a new doc with award-winning director Paul Sng and LS Films.
Lindsay Watson – Editor
Lindsay is a documentary feature film editor. Post-degree, she cut her teeth working with renowned photographer Emma Summerton for several years in London, during which her editing flair and passion for human-interest stories evolved.
Her works have streamed and broadcast nationally, and screened at top tier festivals, including Sheffield DocFest. Recently, Lindsay edited SINCE YESTERDAY’ (directed by Carla J Easton and Blair Young). This feature documentary will be broadcast by BBC Scotland later this year.
Mo Wilde – Co-director, narrator, research botanist
She is a forager, research herbalist, and ethnobotanist living in West Lothian in a self-built wooden house on 4 organic acres. Author of "The Wilderness Cure: Ancient Wisdom in a Modern World," she holds a Master’s degree in Herbal Medicine and is a Fellow of the Linnean Society. Specializing in the herbal treatment of infectious diseases, particularly Lyme disease, she directs the Napiers Claid Clinic. She is a lecturer on herbology, teaching courses on foraging and herbal medicine, with the goal of “Restoring Vital Connection.”
Emily Cooney - Cinematographer, assistant director.
Emily is a freelance Director and Editor specializing in branded content and documentary shorts. Graduating in 2022 with a degree in Film Production and Broadcast Engineering, her film "Alterations" won the Make a Difference Award at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival. She also earned the RTS Student Undergraduate Sustainability Award and placed third in the Bill Vinten Awards. Passionate about outdoor sports, sustainability, and social justice, Emily uses her platform to advocate for conservation, equal rights, and inclusivity in her films.
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