Watermelon Magic is a “sweet” and tender film about an adolescent farmer’s daughter who learns to grow and part with one of nature’s most loved summer fruits – the watermelon. When Sylvie’s magical wand breaks, her mother comforts her by planting a tray of seeds.
As Sylvie begins to water the plants she witnesses the seedlings come to life in the greenhouse and deeply connects with the tiny plants she is growing. She takes ownership over this heartfelt project and builds her very own garden in the fields of her family’s farm. This delightful sequence includes building a fence and painting a colorful sign to accompany the plants as they start to flower and change form into a fruit. Over the course of the summer, Sylvie is filled with pride as the watermelons swell to enormous size.
During these months, Sylvie learns that she does not need a wand to experience magic because it can be found in nature. The transformation of tiny seeds into growing plants that bear huge fruits is truly magical. When harvest time arrives, Sylvie is faced with the realization that her watermelons must be taken to market and sold. How will she part with her precious babies she has nurtured all season?
Watermelon Magic effortlessly illustrates elementary scientific concepts centered on the benefits of growing your own food starting with a few seeds in the backyard. This compelling and fun documentary employs a very unique style filmmakers created by assembling high-resolution digital still images with a combination of time-lapse, shutter-burst, and freeze frame techniques which set a rhythm and pace more akin to an animated film than traditional live-action.
Through humor and drama, audiences experience the challenges and rewards from farm-to-table and community supported agriculture.Written and Directed by Richard Power Hoffmann
