feature documentary
Untitled Tennessee Fiber Supply Chain
directed by Amelia Bartlett
in collaboration with Slow Knitting
A Tennessee crafting enthusiast reimagines the wool supply chain by cutting out middlemen, valuing quality, and fostering community. Filmed across the Southeast, the story explores heritage, sustainability, and “think global, act local” through farmers, makers, and customers whose lives are shaped by wool, crafting a vision for sustainable fiber farming.
The film follows Hannah Thiessen Howard, a crafting enthusiast, fiber industry thought leader, and author of Slow Knitting and Slow Knitting Seasonal, as she works with a network of regional partners to reimagine the wool supply chain in Tennessee. Through the lens of her passion for fiber arts and long standing in the broader fiber community, we aim to capture the realities of being a wool farmer and the potential for revitalizing the regional wool industry, reintroducing sustainable practices to an industry deeply impacted by globalization.
Incorporating influences from niche content genres such as ASRM, observational (process) cinema, Slow TV, and Shorts (soundbites), will help broaden the audience reach of this educational nostalgia-inspired cozy documentary.
At its core, the film addresses the inequities of a bloated agricultural supply chain that prioritizes scalability and cost over quality and craft. Wool farmers face challenges such as lack of buyers, inadequate sorting practices that undervalue unique fibers, limited processing infrastructure, and knowledge gaps in transitioning raw wool into market-ready products. Through the lens of a crafting enthusiast determined to establish a wool pool in Tennessee, the story illustrates the fight to reclaim power for rural communities, restore value to regional fibers, and reintroduce sustainable practices to an aspect of agriculture — sheep farming — that could be a tremendous boon for our region’s climate response.