We are reminded to cherish | Super Nature at the Studio 74
Super Nature is a unique and poetic film that explores humanity’s connection to the natural world. Shot entirely using Super 8 cameras, the film is the directorial debut of Ed Sayers, who combines his own footage and stories with those of forty international filmmakers and environmentalists. Studio 74 at Exeter Phoenix recently held a special preview screening of the film, which was followed by an in-person discussion with Sayers and the film’s casting producer Phoebe Holman.
The film is part documentary, part art film, as it weaves together the stories of the filmmakers and natural scientists who worked on it. In the post-screening Q&A Sayers discussed how he began the project by reaching out to other Super 8 filmmakers, who were members of the online community Straight 8.
Open-ended
Sayers then brought Phoebe Holman aboard to help him connect with international environmental scientists and naturalists. Filming using Super 8 was completely new to most of these contributors and their brief was intentionally open-ended: film nature. Sayers also provided the participants with a second Super 8 camera so that they could film themselves as they filmed their subject.
Super 8 doesn’t record sound, so the footage is paired with audio clips of the filmmakers discussing their work and how the process of creating the film has impacted them. These intimate accounts are woven together to create a tapestry of interlocking short pieces that explore many different aspects of humanity’s relationship with nature.
Diverse stories
We watch and listen to stories as diverse as a Kenyan ranger working with the last two Northern White Rhinos, to Greenpeace trying to clean-up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, to exploring the Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park.
Phoebe Holman was the project’s equity, diversity and inclusion lead and was particularly excited by the idea of bringing in authentic stories from women, people of colour and indigenous people. The collaborators were given space to tell their own stories without specific directions from the team in the UK. Holman and Sayers described how this created an amazing array of footage, each with an individual identity, and spoke about how it felt like the whole world was coming together to create this powerful film.
Continued conversations
Sayers talked about how he continued to have conversations with the collaborators as he edited the film. The stories were all unique and varied in style, but Sayers spoke about the way that they all came together very naturally, and described the different threads being connected like a network of mycelium.
By portraying it through the nostalgic lens of the Super 8 camera, the natural world feels like a loving family member, and we are reminded to cherish it as such. The film is an extraordinary and immersive exploration of the magnitude of nature and our relationship to it.
After a special preview at the Exeter Phoenix, Super Nature is now in cinemas.
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- We are reminded to cherish | Super Nature at the Studio 74 - September 9, 2026
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