Lost for Words Film Screening - Q&A with Director Hannah Papacek Parker

We are thrilled to invite you to a screening of ‘Lost for Words’, followed by a Q&A with the director, Hannah Papacek Parker. This documentary explores our relationship to nature in times of ecological crisis, and the role of words to re-enchant the world around us, inspired by Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarland’s ‘The Lost Words’ book.

Lost For Words is an odyssey across the United Kingdom. It celebrates our relationship with nature through diverse voices while actively reshaping our anthropocentric point of view with a poetic and scientific approach.

Using Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris’s best-selling book The Lost Words as inspiration, Lost for Words begins with a journey around the UK, portraying landscapes, communities and their connections to nature. This project engages with the most prominent global issues of our time, starting with the evolution and disappearance of nature’s names from the language of young and future generations. Through this lens, the filmmakers tackle pressing concerns like climate change, habitat destruction, population displacement species extinction. Their approach is empathetic and non- catastrophizing, avoiding alarmist narratives to foster collective action.

By immersing viewers in the character and essence of the UK’s natural landscapes, Lost For Words showcases diverse British communities rediscovering and renewing their natural surroundings. Rather than showcasing global landscapes, they focus in on one local environment to draw people into an intimacy with nature while raising questions that are increasingly pressing for everyone on this planet.

Examining humanity’s historical relationship with nature, Lost For Words explores themes of land ownership, colonization, and linguistic imperialism. Central to the storytelling is the choice of underrepresented voices as protagonists: children, Alzheimer’s patients, female researchers, social workers, artists from different backgrounds. This approach addresses nature’s accessibility, among marginalized socio-economic groups, while also inspiring viewers across all demographics to identify with participants on screen.

Lost For Words is an invitation to forge a new relationship with nature and spark dialogue on how to reconnect with it. It provokes questions in both viewer and protagonist. Together we wonder: What is our future? How can we shape it? How do we consider the needs of the non-human world?

About the Director

Graduated in Aesthetics and Cinema Practice, from the universities of La Sorbonne Pantheon, and La Universidad de Lima, in 2015, Hannah Papacek Harper is now a writer, director and multimedia artist. Based in Scotland, she is developing several projects on the subject of ecology, intertwining science with art. Her research is otherwise geared toward displacement, identity and transgenerational memory. Profoundly interested in communication, transmission and sensorial approaches to film, she continually searches for new empathetic ways to touch a general public. Her roots are in experimental video and from 2021 to 2023, two of her experimental short films, Just Listen To The Storm and Vegetative, travelled festivals worldwide. Lost For Words is her documentary feature debut which premiered at CPH:DOX in March of 2025.

This event is supported by the AHRC-DFG project ‘A different kind of war story: Centering practices of love and care’.

To increase accessibility, we have chosen a sliding scale for our ticket prices. If you can afford a full-price ticket, and would like to support others to attend, please choose an upper-tier "pay it forward" ticket. If you would like to attend, but affording a ticket is a barrier, please select our £5 option or contact Anne (adaffertshofer@standrewsbotanic.org) to register for a free of charge ticket. All donations and ticket sales are essential in allowing us to continue offering events such as these - we're grateful for all our supporters who attend our events and are advocates for our work.

This event will follow our "SABG Across Past, Present and Future" memory gathering event - visitors are very welcome to attend both.