The film Plant Yourself Firm by director Saffron McLeod is a meditative journey, gently guided by nature and breath work that explores innately primal rituals like movement and catharsis to eventually ground oneself and relieve anxiety.

The film explores how we can practice existing within more primal states and relieve our anxieties through: touch, movement, catharsis and nurturing the inner child through fantasy, escapism and catharsis. Within the film, these rituals function as forms of medication. Plant Yourself Firm is a meditative journey post-anxiety attack, interwoven with elements of nature - specifically trees. They can serve as tools of meditation and offer us balance when we feel manic or anxious. Trees are our friends; they’re anchored, wise, evolving and peaceful and we have a harmoniously transactional relationship with them. They breathe, we breathe. Not only should we extend our gratitude and acknowledge their fundamental role in preserving our ecosystem, but we can learn so much from them. Nature can medicate us and this film not only encourages the viewer the medicate more primally and spiritually but also embody the spirit of a tree. Take a deep breath, plant yourself firm and like trees, you too will find your equilibrium. Therefore during certain scenes, I wanted Tiffanie to appear integrated with the ecosystem that we created of the set to ensure we remember how fundamental it is to embrace introspection as well as looking outwards and understanding our interconnectedness thus perceiving ourselves as belonging to something bigger.

The director Saffron McLeod notes: 'I have anxiety disorder and OCD and I help myself through meds and therapy, however as I embark more and more on my spiritual journey I've been exploring more natural forms of medication such as meditation, breath work and more primal rituals like movement and touch. Materialising this through the medium of film made even more sense as it's such a collaborative, community based process and my community heavily affirm and support me when it comes to my mental disorders so it felt like a beautifully circular project to create. Another big catalyst for this project that made it all click into place in my brain was around 9 months ago, I was at a party and met a stranger who was having a panic attack by themselves outside. I spoke to them for ages, calming them down and we did a brief mindful meditation together to help relieve their anxiety. There were trees all around us and I encouraged them to adopt the stoic spiritual and physical ethos of trees - breathe in and out and plant yourself firm because you will also find your equilibrium. This conversation was in September 2023 and I wrote it all down and sat on it for a while, developing the idea, then ran with it fully in February 2024 and finished it in May!