Wild Plants, Foraging, Food, Art and Culture

View Original

The Weedy One - A short doco about a migrant journey to find connection through weeds.

It is humbling to have a film crew following you around for a couple of years. It heightens your awareness of what you say and why, what you offer and how.

This is what happened when the fabulous creatives at Wayward Films decided to create a short documentary about what I do, click on the image below for the 9 minutes video. Enjoy!


The Weedy One tells the story of my journey from a farm boy in rural Italy to becoming a respected wild food forager here in Australia. On my own journey to find connection and something of value to offer in my new country, I discover that my struggle to be accepted and understood was parallel to that same prejudice we inflict on introduced species labelled as ‘weeds’. After all, I’m an exotic too!

 “Diego Bonetto is as mongrel and resilient as the plants that he celebrates. He possesses all of the traits and characteristics that make weeds such an ever-present everyday phenomenon.” - Costa Georgiadis

The film recently had its world premiere in New York at the Montauk Film Festival in July of 2022. Montauk is located on the very end of long island in New York and is frequently visited by high-profile celebrities, filmmakers and artists. The Weedy One screened amongst a selection of highly acclaimed films that inspire awareness about our local environment through themes of athleticism, humanity and sustainability.

The Directors of the film Morgan Way & Sam Doyon are also directors at the Sydney-based production company, Wayward Films (waywardfilms.com.au). They are successful and sought-after TV commercial and branded content directors who specialise in visual narrative storytelling. One of the silver linings of the lockdowns was that in the absence of their highly coveted commercial work, they found the time to follow a passion project and the Weedy One film was born.

The Weedy One

Duration 9:00
Producer: Morgan Way & Sam Doyon
Director: Sam Doyon & Morgan Way
Director of Photography: James Gilligan
Editor: Morgan Way & Sam Doyon
Graphics: Bethany Levy
Colourist: James Gilligan