Climate Action! Festival 2024
Back to Nature
20-25 June
Join us from 20 – 25 June for Depot’s annual Climate Action! Festival. This year’s “Back to Nature” theme focuses on how we can reconnect with our environment from the ground up! The festival’s fun includes documentaries, films, talks, workshops, and activities providing insight into ways we can take action and re-find harmony with nature in our everyday lives.
Get stuck in and discover the importance of soil, fungi, faeces and the humble house plant! Learn about how nature rights are being integrated globally into legal systems through our specially curated short film program. Get wild showcasing local wildflower initiatives and take a wildflower roof tour.
We are part of nature, so let’s act like it!
Full Festival Programme
Thursday 20 June
Opening Night Film: Fungi: Web of Life
18:15
With pre-recorded introduction Q&A with acclaimed British biologist, Dr. Merlin Sheldrake (Entangled Life)
Fungi have important lessons to teach humanity about survival through cooperation. Indeed, these incredible lifeforms may hold the key to solving some of humanity’s most urgent problems. With millions more species to discover, our journey into the secret world of fungi has only just begun. With narration from Björk, join Dr. Merlin Sheldrake on a quest to find an incredibly precious blue mushroom, against the backdrop of Tasmania’s ancient Tarkine rainforest.
Restaurant Fungi Special
Truffled Wild Mushroom Risotto
Available from 16:00 and after the film
Reservations are available from 16:00 onwards, Monday – Friday in our restaurant
Please note: we recommend allowing up to 1hr 40m to dine before your film or live arts screening.
Saturday 22 June
Wildflower Roof Tours
Sessions at 11:30 & 14:00
Ages 8+
Free ticketed event – please book in advance
Did you know Depot’s roof is a bug-superhighway! Our rooftop garden, a stepping stone in a series of nationally connected pollinator corridors, boasts 72 species of wildflower and caters to 9 species of bee. Join us for an exclusive tour of our wildflower garden given by our very own Sustainability Manager, Natasha Padbury,
Film: Light Needs
15:30
Artistically inventive and deeply thoughtful, this imaginative documentary delves into the lives of houseplants who cohabitate with people, and the surprisingly complex relationships that can develop between them.
Exhibition: Creating a Home For Nature
Depot Studio
Drop in between 11:00 – 15:00
Free entry
This vibrant exhibition showcases a pilot project underway creating a wildflower area in the grounds of Beechwood Hall in Cooksbridge. It’s part of a collective local effort, headed by District Councillors, to create chains of wildflowers across the area to help our devastated insect population, fight climate change and connect communities to nature.
Sunday 23 June
Film: Biggest Little Farm
11:00 – Depot Kid’s Club Screening
A couple are followed through their successes and failures as they work to develop a sustainable farm on 200 acres outside of Los Angeles. Directed by filmmaker and farmer John Chester, the film is a testament to the complexity of nature and an epic odyssey to attempt to farm within a reawakening ecosystem.
Workshop: Soil School
Depot Studio
15:00 – 16:20
£10 per ticket
Soil needs you! Whether you have a few indoor pot plants, a yard, garden or allotment this event is for you. Join local Compost Club founder Michael Kennard for a lively talk about why soil is so amazing and critical for a healthy planet. Learn practical tips on a variety of composting situations and how you can design the right composting system for you. Get started or up skill your composting and deepen our understanding of this diverse ecosystem.
Film: Six Inches of Soil
19:30
Includes a panel discussion on sustainable farming practices with speakers Duncan Rawson (European Food and Farming Partnerships (EFFP)), Michael Kennard (Compost Club), & Anthony Becvar (Little Goldsmiths Farm)
The inspiring story of British farmers standing up against the industrial food system and transforming the way they produce food – to heal the soil, benefit our health and provide for local communities.
Monday 24 June
Film: Holy Shit
20:30
HOLY SHIT breaks the taboo of speaking about human excrement and shows ways out of the dead end of flush and forget. Feeding the world and mitigating the climate crisis by putting our poop back into the loop.
Tuesday 25 June
Rights of Nature: The Next Revolution?
18:00
Includes panel discussion on the developing Charter for our local river with community initiative Love our Ouse, and speakers from the University of Sussex discussing Rights of Nature projects they are working on, with report on Ecoforensics progress in Equador
Women’s rights, civil rights, human rights…yet nature still has little legal standing in a court of law. With our ever urgent Climate and Nature crisis, there is an uprising around the world to give nature a voice and the same protections to live and thrive.
Join us for a specially curated selection of short films exploring the fast growing nature rights movement around the world from South America to the Arctic to Lewes UK.
Lewes Climate Hub
Lewes Climate Hub – Taking steps for wildlife
Wednesday 24 April – Saturday 15 June
A season celebrating how we can all help our local Swifts, wildflowers, bees and trees!
See the full range of programmes and events available from Lewes Climate Hub
Lewes Climate Hub, Lewes House, 32 High Street, Lewes, BN7 2LU