BOILING SPRING LAKES, N.C. (WECT) – Documentary filmmaker Robert Ford is from London, but he’s always had a fondness for a plant that grows across the Atlantic Ocean in Southeastern North Carolina.
“I have been fascinated by the Venus flytrap for many years, since childhood, like many children, but I didn’t outgrow it,” Ford said. “I just think they’re the most amazing, most fascinating plant, and I really want to celebrate them on the screen.”
Ford has produced and won awards for several documentary films, like The Deepest Breath, Rising Phoenix, and Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, but his next project, Flytrap Town, is a departure from those projects.
Focusing on the Venus flytrap, Flytrap Town tells the stories of local volunteers, scientists and wildlife officers as they work to protect the world’s only wild population of the plant, found within a 75-mile radius of Wilmington.
“The film will feature really incredible state-of-the-art macro cinematography showing the Venus Flytrap with a level of detail that’s never been seen before on the screen,” Ford said. “But it’s actually the story of the humans, the people who are trying to protect it.”
One of those people is Kathy Sykes. Sykes lives in Boiling Spring Lakes and is part of a group called Venus Flytrap Champions. Over the past few years, they’ve completed eight “Venus Flytrap Rescues,” where they save native flytrap plants from areas that are about to be developed. They dig them up and replant them in a safe location along the Boiling Spring Lakes Nature Trail.
While the plant itself is protected by state law, Sykes said the lands they grow on sometimes are not.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how protected the plant is if the habitat isn’t protected,” Sykes said. “Like, even though they’re protected, the developer can do what he wants with the land that he owns. He can go right in there and bulldoze all those ditches and turn it all up and throw it all on the debris pile.”
Sykes believes development, not poachers, is the largest threat now facing the native species.
It’s something Ford has also noticed throughout his six trips to North Carolina in the past three years.
“A lot of the filming takes place in Brunswick County, and every time I would come there, I would see more and more development, new houses,” Ford said.
Ford filmed Sykes and the Venus Flytrap Champions for days at a time, but they won’t be the only group featured. Ford also interviewed researchers and scientists who work with the plant daily.
Sykes hopes that when it comes to the final edit, audiences will understand her message as a local volunteer loud and clear.
“We have a unique opportunity here to not let this species go the way of the dodo bird,” Sykes said. “Right now, it’s the time to act. I was honored to hopefully be featured, and it may all wind up on the cutting floor, but at least I feel like I did my part and I tried.”
Ford plans to travel back to southeastern North Carolina in October to do some more filming, but he says he won’t be able to finish the project without more financial help.
“These feature documentaries take a long time to make,” Ford said. “I want to keep filming until next spring and then edit. So it’s a long process, but we do need more funding to continue.”
For anyone interested in donating, he encourages them to visit the documentary’s website.
Ford hopes to have the film released by late 2026 or early 2027.
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