Feature: The family that went back to nature

Winters family keep warm in Norway

Norway (Image: Free Press Images)

“It was not a bad life,” says Rolf. But it was when the couple were expecting their third child, Levy, that they realised bringing up three children in London no longer felt like a healthy choice. 

“It was far too intense and we realised we were not looking for a more child-friendly city but a completely different way of life.” 

Working for some of the largest corporations in the world had also left him disillusioned and seeking a different perspective. 

So, to the bemusement of their city-based friends, the couple sold their home and possessions, and moved with Zoeli, then six, Sky, three, and Levy, two, to the woods of upper Michigan on the edge of a Native American reservation in America’s icy north near the border with Canada. 

There they gradually got to know Nowaten, an 80-year-old leather-faced medicine man who was destined to transform their lives with his insights into the perils of contemporary culture and his gentle urging for a more connected way of life. 

It seemed like the family had achieved its aim of escaping from the rat race. 

But after living close to the land and their tribal neighbours in the frozen north, the family decided to travel further into this hidden world by living with and capturing on fi lm other indigenous elders. 

Armed with a backpack each and two small cameras, the intrepid couple began a life-changing journey across six continents with their children in tow. 

“We had no film-making experience but we wanted to find a new perspective on life and to share it,” says Rolf. “And we knew we had to do this before their insights were lost for ever.” 

The result of their five-year quest is a fi lm called Down To Earth, a poignant portrayal of the so-called Earth Keepers, the indigenous leaders who “have retained a natural balance and live in harmony with their surroundings”. 

The Winters children making friends in Australia

Making friends in Oz (Image: Free Press image)

This weekend the award-winning documentary is released in British cinemas with a soundtrack by Oscar-winning composer Stephen Warbeck who composed the music for films including Billy Elliot and Shakespeare In Love. 

“When I became a mum I wanted my children to grow up in nature as much as that was possible in a city,” says Renata. 

“But this grew into a determination to give them any opportunity to have true freedom and not to be constantly policed by us. 

“In a city you can’t leave them out of your sight for five seconds but we wanted to try something different.”

Instead Zoeli, Sky and Levy spent a large chunk of their formative years growing up alongside Amazonian, African, Asian and Aboriginal children in some of the most remote places on Earth, including the Amazonian rainforest, the Australian Outback and the Kalahari desert. 

In the fi m the children are seen playing with locals of their own age. 

In one dusty African village they run round in circles, teaching the game Duck-DuckGoose to their new friends and giggling delightedly despite the language barrier. 

 

Rolf filming children of India's Bahia tribe

Rolf and Bahia tribe children (Image: Free Press Images)

The footage exemplifies perfectly the carefree way of life the family enjoyed but the children very nearly never made the cut. 

When audiences at test screenings in 2012 clamoured for more footage of the children Rolf and Renata had to say it would be impossible as they had not shot them. 

“When Renata and I were filming we didn’t film each other or the children,” explains Rolf. 

“We planned only to film our interviewees in their natural environment where they would normally sit.”

However on inspecting the small cameras they had given the children the parents unearthed some hidden gems. 

“The kids were very supportive and although we had not taken much footage of them ourselves we realised that there were 35 tapes in a bag that the children had shot on their own small cameras,” says Renata. 

“What we all really liked was their sense of the ease of living remotely,” adds Rolf. 

With San tribe children, Namibia

Namibia children (Image: Free Press Images)

In one extraordinary sequence the children dance around a fire as shamans communicate with the spirit world under a canopy of stars. 

“Looking back I don’t think they have suffered from not being in school for five years,” says Renata. 

When they were travelling the children had to do school work every day, even when in airports and hotel rooms. 

They would learn about the culture, language, animal and plant life in each country they visited – the ultimate geography field trip. 

They also studied maths and English. 

“It has been much harder to come back,” says Renata. 

“Even several years on it still feels very challenging for me to live a static life. In fact I’m still completely out of my comfort zone but I believe I can learn from this.” 

So, just what was it like when they arrived home in 2010 after five years of nomadic travelling and sent their children back to school – a move that they always knew would need to happen while the children were still young? 

They had a very different context,” says Rolf, who like his wife is in his mid-40s. 

“They didn’t know who Justin Bieber was and the children at school were talking about people and TV programmes that they had never watched. 

“So it was strange for them getting used to the social dynamic. 

They also found the children at their Steiner school to be quite negative in ways they were not but kids are very adaptive so they soon adjusted.” 

He adds: “What I think their travels have given them is a really good foundation emotionally and mentally. They are very resilient and they seem to be full of empathy and intuition around people who might need their support.” 

Today the family live near Lewes, East Sussex, in a converted chicken shed that they have refurbished into an open-plan house. 

Zoeli is now 20, Sky is 17 and Levy, 15. 

The children and their parents have their own bedrooms but much of their time is lived around a vast table in the main living space that can seat 20 and was made by a local carpenter. 

The Winters rocking the Kalahari

The Kalahari (Image: Free Press Image)

“Everything happens around that communal table,” says Rolf. 

“It is where we eat, work and talk.” 

The family have their own vegetable garden, rely on solar energy and heat their hot water on a wood-burning stove. 

“When the kids have parties it is so lovely to see that they always move out and end up sitting around the fire making music,” says Renata. 

“It is as if they are still trying to stay as much connected to the natural world as they can.” 

 

The Winters family as they appear today alongside acting legend Mark Rylance

Winters family and Mark Rylance (Image: Ilona van Genderen Stort
)

Interestingly, while her travels have inspired Zoeli to take a degree in anthropology, which she will begin in two weeks’ time, she has chosen to do so at Goldsmiths, University of London. 

We don’t make them feel we expect anything of them,” says her mother. 

“I don’t mind what they become or where they do it. I just want them to know who they are and to work out what they really want to do. 

“It’s a very big trap as parents to put expectations on your children.”