Documentary filmmaker Karyl Evans has combined her two greatest professional interests – landscape architecture and filmmaking – to create The Life and Gardens of Beatrix Farrand. Long time Garden Club of New Haven member Evans, who earned her undergraduate degree in horticulture with an emphasis in landscape architecture and a masters degree in filmmaking, has produced a documentary about the historically significant gardens of Beatrix Farrand. For the past three years, Evans has focused her attention on researching Farrand’s life and work as many Farrand gardens were being rediscovered, visiting over 40 Farrand gardens and related sites from Maine to California and Washington D.C. to photograph and videotape the gardens and to talk with curators, scholars, and volunteers who were connected to the Farrand sites. In addition, Karyl conducted research at the Beatrix Farrand Archives at UC Berkeley where she discovered never-before-published materials now included in her film. The resulting 35 minute documentary is a breathtaking film about Beatrix Farrand’s life and gardens chronicling her impressive 50 year career as a landscape architect during the first half of the 20th century. Some of the gardens Evans photographed for the film include: the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor, Maine, Dumbarton Oaks in Washington D.C., the East Garden at the White House, the Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden, her campus work at Yale and Princeton Universities, as well as three significant gardens in Connecticut. The film about Beatrix Farrand, who was the niece of Edith Wharton, also includes over 500 garden photographs, rare archival images, and interviews with Farrand scholars Diana Balmori, landscape historian and Garden Club of the Back Bay member Judith Tankard, as well as landscape architect Shavaun Towers. The documentary is a splendid overview of Farrand’s stunning gardens, her pioneering innovations on college campuses, and her ingenious design philosophy which has stood the test of time.
Karyl Evans is a six-time Emmy Award winning director/producer/editor/writer of documentary films. In 2016 Ms. Evans won the National Academy of Television Arts and Science’s Best Director Emmy Award for her one hour documentary: Letter from Italy, 1944: A New American Oratorio narrated by Meryl Streep.
Ms. Evans, owner of Karyl Evans Productions in North Haven, CT, has produced many historical documentaries over the past 25 years including The New Haven Green: Heart of a City, narrated by Paul Giamatti as well as a series of documentaries for public television including the History of African-Americans in Connecticut and the History of Connecticut’s Cities. Ms. Evans was a full-time Professor at Southern Connecticut State University for two years, teaching film production and theory. Karyl is a Fellow at Yale University and is one of the organizers of the New Haven Documentary Film Festival at Yale.
For more information about Karyl Evans visit her website at: http://karylevansproductions.com
The movie will be screened at Tower Hill Botanic Garden on Sunday, February 26, from 1 – 2:30 pm, and THBG members pay $5, nonmembers $20. Register online at www.towerhillbg.org.
