Waiting for Spring; Persephone and the Pomegranate

Waiting for Spring is an eco-fiction film that looks at the environmental impact of climate change. Set in the near future where the food economy has collapsed due the devastating effects of wild fires on local croplands, we meet Persephone living alone in an abandoned fruit orchard warehouse. She survives by scavenging for pomegranates and making her clothing out of the peels. This film celebrates one person’s ingenuity and adaptability in a desolate dystopian word. It is the first in an ongoing trilogy, which in turn examines desertification and floods.

Waiting for Spring was conceived and directed by environmental artist Nicole Dextras, who is known for creating garments out of living plant materials. Dextras dresses her lead character in a a jacket made from Pomegranate peels, a skirt woven with Dates and boots fashioned out of Fruit Leather. The production design plays off of the conventional sci-fi genre with an earthy Steampunk look, where chairs are covered in moss and respirator masks are filled with herbs.

The story-line abstractly refers to the goddess Persephone, who returns once a year to inaugurate the spring and who is detained in Hades because she ate pomegranate seeds. Our character eats the pomegranate not as a punishment as in the Greek myth but instead for it's healing properties to help her survive and re-integrate into the world.