The Story | foresthymn

Forest Hymn for Little Girls, a feature-length documentary by award-winning videographer Sara Bonaventura, invites you to follow the exploits, struggles, and daring feats of preschoolers as they take to the woodland. With the creative insight of this all-female team of artists, from winter-bundled toddling hikes to free-for-all frolics up a mud-thick hill, we’ll get an intimate glimpse of where children play and what they do when given free rein in the wilds of nature. Because it happens every time - young girls grow old and the forest becomes a housing development. One year in the life of our wild world, Forest Hymn for Little Girls allows us all to take a renewing breath before looking to a future for little girls who love the woodland.

One voice is not enough. Forest Hymn for Little Girls aims to change the conversation around raising girls in our communities across the globe. To make this big hairy audacious goal get on movie screens, an international team of creative minds has united to share their talent. Composers, illustrators, and animators are collaborating from Czech Republic, France, Finland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, UK and the USA! Nearly every country weaved the tale of wolves keeping girls from the wildlands. Now, these countries’ female artists will come together to let little girls speak for themselves.

A provocative collaboration between the videography of Sara Bonaventura and animation style of Elisetta will create a beautiful dynamism between images of the girls and the art they have generated during their reflections and play. With the creative collaboration of the girls, Sara Bonaventura, and Elisetta, the forest sketches of the girls will be put to motion and embedded in the film. Each illustration, drawn by the gentle hands of each young child, reveals her distinctive vision of the woodland and its place in her young life.