The Kiwi, the Knight and the Qashqai

Television (Full Length) – 2018

Anna Williams, one of New Zealand’s only professional oriental rug repairers, meticulously patches handmade rugs in her Wellington studio. This documentary follows her journey to Iran to meet the once nomadic Qashqai people and learn about their rug weaving techniques. From bustling city bazaars to nomadic outposts, Williams witnesses how the art form is quickly vanishing because of modernisation. Williams heads to London to talk with Sir David Attenborough, who documented the Qashqai in the 1970s, about the delicate balance between tradition and progress in a rapidly changing world.

I sometimes think you know that those of us who live in towns and surrounded by the mechanically made things have a romantic vision of what it is to do hand-crafted things like rugs. And the modern world offers a woman more things than just sitting cross-legged tying knots.
– David Attenborough on the misconceptions surrounding nomadic Qashqai life