Viva Lewes Issue #134 November 2017

ON THIS MONTH: FILM
We the Uncivilised
Lily and Pete Sequoia, permaculture filmmakers
I meet Lily and Pete in the van which serves both
as their home and as the vehicle which tows a
trailer containing the 40-person-capacity military
tent they have converted into a cinema and event
space. This remarkable pop-up space enables them
to showcase and discuss the documentary they have
spent the last four years making and touring, We
the Uncivilised, a Life Story.
The film explores the ethics and mechanics of
permaculture, the ecological way of life incorporating,
in Pete’s words, “earth care, people care, and
fair share.” It’s a beautifully rounded project: the
couple, with their young daughter Solara, travelled
round the country – from Devon to the Hebrides
– interviewing outliers who embrace various
permaculture-friendly lifestyles; “a mixture of grass
roots activists, pioneers of the eco movement, and
storytellers”. Then they drove back to their then
home-berth at Zu Studios in the Phoenix industrial
estate, and spent a year editing hundreds of hours
of footage down to a feature-length movie. In the
summer of 2016 they retraced their steps, playing
the film in many of the places they’d been, as well
as others besides. Over 25,000 people watched it.
The couple met in Brighton in 2009 after dropping
out of successful careers in London: Pete had been
a designer working on international projects, Lily
the PA for a marketing consultancy, and then a PT
in a city gym. Neither of them were comfortable
living within the corporate system; it was only after
Pete did a Permaculture Design MA at Brighton
University, and the couple spent their honeymoon
funds on a six-month stay in the Chilean Andes
studying permaculture among the indigenous people,
that they worked out a new path. They bought
themselves a van to give them the freedom they
needed to explore a new way of life.
They needed to jump through countless hoops to
complete their project, from raising money for the
production and post-production, to finding somebody
capable of fine-tuning the editing process:
particularly they are grateful to the creative community
that had grown up around Zu. The journey
showing the film round the country, between June
and November 2016 was particularly gruelling
(and, incidentally, entirely negotiated on biofuel).
That’s not the end of the matter: the couple have
continued to tour the film at festivals this summer,
to get their ideas across. “We want to create an opportunity
for people to connect with their feelings
about what is unfolding and to be empowered by
the process...” says Lily, “and where possible connect
people, communities and ideas that challenge
and resist the dominant narratives, and attempt to
tell a different story of how we can live together in
relationship to our environments.”
The latest screening of the film, at the Depot,
includes a Q&A with the filmmakers, and a guest
panel, chaired by Ben Szobody, consisting of
ONCA director Persephone Pearl, Peter Owen
Jones (Vicar of Firle and TV presenter) and Lilian
Simonsson, editor of the film.
Alex Leith
Depot, Wed 29th November, 8pm
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