The documentary about garden designer Piet Oudolf will be screened throughout the US this summer
Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf about Dutch garden designer and architect Piet Oudolf will be screened throughout the US this summer.
After special screenings at the IFC Center in New York, NY, and the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, IL, the film is now heading for the Bay Area. Find the screening dates and locations of the film on the West Coast below!
After completing a feature documentary on New York’s High Line, award-winning filmmaker Thomas Piper met the inspirational designer and plantsman, Piet Oudolf, and the idea for a new project was born.
Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf immerses viewers in Oudolf’s work and takes us inside his creative process, from his beautifully abstract sketches (see below), to theories on beauty, to the ecological implications of his ideas.
Intimate discussions take place through all fours seasons in Piet’s own gardens at Hummelo, and on visits to his signature public works in New York, Chicago, and the Netherlands, as well as to the far-flung locations that inspire his genius, including desert wildflowers in West Texas and post-industrial forests in Pennsylvania.
As a narrative thread, the film also follows Oudolf as he designs and installs a major new garden at Hauser & Wirth Somerset, a gallery, and arts center in Southwest England, a garden he considers his best work yet.
Piet Oudolf has radically redefined what gardens can be. As Rick Darke, the famous botanist, says to Piet in the film, “your work teaches us to see what we have been unable to see.” Through poetic cinematography and unique access, Five Seasons reveals all that Piet sees, and celebrate all that we as viewers have been unable to see.
Piet Oudolf was born in 1944 in Haarlem, Netherlands. Since 1982, he has lived and worked in Hummelo, a tiny village in the east of the Netherlands, where he started a nursery with his wife Anja, to grow perennials. His garden has since become renowned for its radical approach and ideas about planting design.
Oudolf also co-founded Future Plants, a company specializing in selecting, growing, breeding and protecting plants for landscaping and public areas. Oudolf`s recent projects include No. 5 Culture Chanel, Paris, France; The High Line, New York NY; Lurie Garden, Millennium Park, Chicago IL; Serpentine Gallery, London, England, and the Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy.
Thomas Piper is an award-winning non-fiction filmmaker, specializing in documenting the contemporary arts. He has directed, photographed and edited over 30 films on subjects including the visual artists Pablo Picasso, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, Alex Katz, and Kiki Smith; architects including Frank Lloyd Wright, Peter Eisenman, Jeanne Gang, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Thom Mayne, Jean Nouvel, and Steven Holl; and the writer James Salter.
Thomas is Director of Production for the Checkerboard Film Foundation, responsible for directing, shooting, and editing long-format documentaries on individuals who have made important contributions to the contemporary arts.