If you were part of the audi­ence at the Embassy theatre for the world premiere of Garden­ing with Soul dur­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Film Fest­iv­al you will have wit­nessed some­thing quite extraordin­ary. A stand­ing ova­tion for a 92 year-old Island Bay res­id­ent and a speech by the dimin­ut­ive woman, who star­ted by telling the clap­ping crowd, “I’m so glad you all like garden­ing so much.”

The film is now back by pop­u­lar demand with an inde­pend­ent nation­wide release and it’s a film view­ing exper­i­ence every Wel­ling­to­ni­an should be encour­aged to embrace. Not only is Sis­ter Loy­ola Galv­in (Garden­er of the Year in 2008 among oth­er things), an incred­ible garden­er who grows food for the Sis­ters in the Home of Com­pas­sion in Island Bay, she’s also an incred­ibly wise human being who has helped set up com­munity gar­dens, car­ried out a per­ma­cul­ture course aged 80 and has lim­it­less energy for every­one and everything.

As Dav­id Larsen writes in the Listen­er: “…should you find your­self want­ing your faith in human­ity buoyed up a little, may I dir­ect you to ‘Garden­ing with Soul’, a lovely, gentle study of a year in the life of Sis­ter Loy­ola…. You will not encounter a more ener­get­ic per­son on film this year: a gen­er­a­tion­al icon of prag­mat­ic, cheer­ful, can-do Kiwi vir­tues.”

Dir­ect­or Jess Feast  has said she wanted to “bottle her up and spread her around” and she cer­tainly has.

Cel­eb­rate spring and check it out. I’ve been pot­ting up suc­cu­lents like a mad thing since watch­ing the film (no oth­er space here) so be warned. As one review­er said, “it may very well be life-chan­ging.”

Screen­ing around the region:

Waik­an­ae – Shoreline Cinema

Par­a­pa­raumu – Cinema Gold

Paua­ta­hanui – Light­house

Petone  – Light­house

Wel­ling­ton – Para­mount, Pent­house

Image by Dion Howard
Image by Dion Howard