Violet And The Wildman
Violet and the Wildman
Directed by Krisztina Danka | Review by Aindrila Chatterjee
Whoever loves and understands a garden will find a contentment within. The famous Chinese proverb says it all for this nature documentary film “Violet and the Wildman”. Krisztina Danka, Ph.D., the executive director of “Violet and the Wildman”, is herself of the US origin. Besides being a multi-award winner director, she is also the author of three books, a college lecturer, human rights and environmental activist. She is the writer-director-producer of over 30 documentaries, television-series and videos. Her topics of work are mainly upon human rights, charity work, inspiring stories, environmental issues, animal rights, vegetarianism, art, science and spirituality and education.
She likes to tell people’s stories. So, her documentaries always focus upon real human characters and their real experiences which audience can easily relate with and could understand easily the whole topic. In this documentary short film of Krisztina, the inspirational story of Steve Brill shows us how a person saves animal by searching various edible plants and their medicinal values worldwide.
Here ‘violet’ is not only representing the daughter of Steve Brill, Violet Brill, who is the center of his world, but also colors of nature and incomparable beauty of natural treasures. And ‘wildman’ refers to the plant-eater, Steve Brill, who continues his search for edible wild plants all over the world and once has been put behind the bars in 1986 for eating a dandelion in Central Park, New York. Born in the US, Steve Brill is a naturalist, environmental educator and author. He used to buy organic chicken for his meals, but once he saw a terrible sight of chicken in a slaughter house, he changed his mind. He totally lost his desire for animal flesh since that day. He then started his journey for the medicinal and edible plants all over the world and asked many botany students, researchers and other professionals of all ages to join his journey.
During his travel around the world, he once found a plant which can solve any skin irritation problems, even a small mosquito bite. This ‘Wildman’ even found some endangered plant species as well. According to him, these hands-on programs are designed not only to learn about the nature, but also to get back to touch with it. Our rich ecological treasures can be rebuilt only by preserving the renewable resources and reaffirming our commitments towards nature. Furthermore, according to Brill, the whole world is his garden because there are so many edible and medicinal plants. He went on searching for those amazing facts about nature in his ‘’own garden’’. Steve is able to convince in his philosophy all the others students and researchers except for his only daughter and partner, Violet. Now the question is, will he be able to convince his daughter in the credibility of his research?
“Glamour is not for us, it’s for others”. Hearing that Aindrila came into the world of media. Her struggle started from her college days. She loves to communicate with people. Adventure is her first love. Worked in many Bengali media houses like Aajkaal, SNews during and after her university days. She loves literature, drama, cinema, football, and cooking. She loves to learn new things daily. According to her, communication and books make a person more knowledgeable.
