Summary

Pushed Up the Mountain is a poetic and emotionally intimate film about plants and the people who care for them. Through the tale of the migrating rhododendron, now endangered in its native China, the film reveals how high the stakes are for all living organisms in this time of unprecedented destruction of the natural world. Beginning in my godfather's garden in the Scottish Highlands, the film travels between conservationists in Scotland and China who devote their lives to the rhododendron’s survival. Intimately observed footage of conservationists at work combines with centuries-old landscape paintings and my speculative voice to create a thought-provoking film about human efforts to protect nature for and from ourselves.