A new documentary explores the wild wetlands just outside Madison, Wisconsin. It’s the first feature-length work of Ben Albert's, a 24-year-old Milwaukee filmmaker, whose grandparents have lived on the outskirts of the Waubesa Wetlands for decades. The wetlands are among the most diverse and well-preserved remaining in southern Wisconsin.
In it, Albert is guided by the wisdom of his grandfather, Calvin DeWitt, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor emeritus and wetland scientist who was closely involved with the creation of the preserve.
Albert speaks with WUWM’s Lina Tran before the new documentary, An Invitation to Wonder: Waubesa Wetlands, screens at Milwaukee Film’s Dialogues Documentary Festival this week.
How did this project get started?
This film was inspired by my grandparents. They live in Madison, Wisconsin, and basically out their back door are these wetlands, Waubesa Wetlands. They’ve lived there for over 50 years. My grandpa is just so in love with this place. He has spent most of his life studying it, exploring it, and building awareness around this ecosystem, eventually leading it to be protected as a state natural area. He worked with neighbors and the local town to buy land easements and purchase the land around the wetland and protect it, which is a whole other story. And as a kid, they would take my siblings and me out into the wetlands almost every Friday.
The film started in the spring of 2020. I [had] just decided to not go back to film school, I had been in school for two years. I remembered those experiences as a kid in the wetland and also just talking to my grandpa, hearing his passion and love for this place. I realized there might be a story there.
It was COVID, 2020. I was a little bit lost, didn't really know what I was doing with my life. I thought, what better use of my time than to try to put everything into making this film? I spent a solid six months filming total. The first three months were at my grandparents’ house. For the first few months, I slept in my car because I was worried about COVID and didn't want to get them sick. Eventually, I upgraded to a tent in their backyard. And then you know, going out every day and exploring this place and capturing it with my camera and learning from my grandpa and his experience.
What did you hope to accomplish? What did you think that you were gonna get?
I knew that there was a story there, [but] I wasn't really sure what it was. So my intention was just through spending the time there and exploring it every day and going out with my camera, that naturally, the film would develop.
That's also my grandfather's way of teaching. When we talked about making this film, he gave me some hints about what I should look for and what I should capture. But he really wanted to give me the opportunity to discover the wetland for myself. Interestingly enough, that became the foundation of the film in a way. It’s about my own discovery of the wetland — being someone who doesn't have a scientific background — and it allows the film to be more approachable, I think, to a general audience. They're going on that journey with me.
Over the months and weeks that you were going into the wetlands, what did you notice about how you were experiencing them, and how that changed over time?
Wetlands are an extremely difficult ecosystem to film in, and they’re an intimidating environment to explore. I think that was also a goal of the film, to create a better portrayal of these places.
When you first go into a wetland, it seems like this green, wet place that doesn't have [many] interesting things happening. Everything is soaking wet, you're going to get soaked. The vegetation is hard to navigate. In the evenings, you're getting swarmed by mosquitoes.
It's a very hostile place to people at first impression. But I found after spending day in and day out there, you get past that and you begin to see what makes wetlands so special. There's such an abundance of life and biodiversity in wetlands; they're one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the whole planet. Every day, I would notice something new, a new species or bird. It's this very complicated system that kind of reveals over time how complicated it is. It's the type of place where, the more time you spend there, the less you really understand about it.
You were working really closely with your grandfather on this project. Was that a new dynamic to your relationship? What was that like?
He always talks about these things, even outside of working on the film. He's 88 years old now, and he’s still writing books and doing presentations and sharing about the wetland and his work. I've been around that my whole life.
So it wasn't that new in a way. The first few months, it was during COVID. We could have conversations. But mostly, I would go out into the marsh, he would be on the porch drinking his coffee. We would check in once in the evening. Later, I conducted three to four interviews with him. So we spent a lot of time together and definitely got to know each other better.
I think it reminded me of what I care about as a person. And it was inspiring to be learning from him and his love for learning, for science, for these places. It inspired me to keep going with the film and to pursue this work.
It was really delightful to get to know your grandfather through the film. What do you hope people take away from it?
I think we need to change our perspective and see ourselves as being part of the natural world. The first step is getting people to pause and take a moment to discover what's around them. In Wisconsin, there is all this biodiversity and life and these mysteries, right here, 20 minutes from Madison. And yes, Waubesa Wetlands has a long history. But even a forest or a prairie near you supports all this life. We're to the point where we need to hold on to these places for the survival of species on our planet and ourselves too, because we're connected to it.
The overall goal is an invitation to get people to look at what's around them and discover what's in their own backyard. One thing my grandpa says, that I think was a big takeaway from this project, is people only protect something that they love.
"An Invitation to Wonder: Waubesa Wetlands’"screens at the Milwaukee Film Dialogues Documentary Film Festival Friday, Sept. 27 at 8:30 p.m. at the Downer Theater. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker, his grandfather and a wetland specialist. Find tickets and more information here.
