The Forest in Me opens out from a personal story about living with uncertainty to reflect upon quiet possibilities of love and connection.

The film interweaves the story of Agafya Lykova, an elderly hermit who survives alone in the Siberian Forest - scaring bears away by banging on space-rocket debris, a crew simulating life on Mars isolated on a Hawaiian volcano, and the filmmaker’s young child discovering the world.

Blending decades of personal footage with global meditations, it is a cinematic letter to the future, composed in filmic fragments, tenderness, and sound.

The Forest in Me is a poetic documentary, both intimate and cosmic, that reflects on resilience and timeless human experiences.

It speaks to lovers of memory cinema, eco-poetry, radical motherhood and handmade nonfiction.

The film’s original and evocative soundtrack is composed by Xylouris White (drummer Jim White [Dirty Three], lutist Giorgos Xylouris, Guy Picciotto [Fugazi]). Apollonia Xylouris contributes additional vocals.

SCREEN FILM

Intimate and epic, close-woven as in breath shared between parent and child, Marshall has achieved a visual poem in the grand tradition. Mesmerising.
- Iain Sinclair

Marshall brings a poet’s eye and a mother’s tongue to this compelling exploration of what it means to live in isolation whilst all around the hubbub of human existence sets about its busyness.
- Andrew Kötting.

Marshall’s film is an antidote. She slows time and allows us to listen in on this intimate message from a mother to her child. It is comprised of sparks of memory, dreams and visions of the future. She lists the qualities she most values: the resilience and holiness of an old woman living in the heart of a Siberian forest, the patience and courage of a Mars simulation crew. She discovers that her child is her teacher in what she calls “the glorious chaos of living”. This film-poem is a handprint left on the cave wall.
- Tony Grisoni

CREDITS

Director / Editor Rebecca E Marshall
Cinematography Sarah Cunningham
Assistant director Elena Andreicheva
Translator Elena Andreicheva
Editor Rebecca E Marshall
Associate Editor Daniel Passes
Sound Design Chu-Li Shewring
Soundtrack Xylouris White
Additional music Simon Keep
Producers Dear Future Films
Funders Creative Europe, LUSH films
Poster design @aniagoszczynska