An Arthurian legend is reimagined as a summer fragrance film

Short film and scent aren’t two concepts that normally go hand-in-hand. However, the cult brand Ffern—famed for their organic eau de parfums—have long embrace this alliance. Since 2018, each new fragrance launch of the Somerset-based brand has been complimented by an original short: Bill Nighy starred in their Summer 2025 campaign, a rose-hued tale about a brother and sister who resurrect an ice cream van in their grandfather’s garage, The Outrun’s Nora Fingscheidt directed the Winter 2026 campaign, which followed a female lighthouse in the days leading up to the Winter Solstice, whilst Autumn 2025 captured an age old tradition of fruit theft, with folkloric and festive music by Katy J Pearson. For Ffern, narrative form creates a language to describe the intangible sensations of the olfactory. 

This season is no exception. For Summer 2026—whose top notes of clementine and white grapefruit, followed by elegant damask rose—is complemented by a modern interpretation of the chivalric myth of Gawain and the Green Knight. Julia Jackman who, since 100 Nights of Hero, whose source text is the Arabian Nights, has shown a talent for reinterpreting old-age stories, directs India Varma and Faye Marsay in an all-female Green Night, taking the film away from the wintery landscape of the tale into an estival and aptly verdant landscape where a bloody duel turns into a celebration of flora. “May nature always prevail,” reads the tagline. Fragrance like stories, we are told, endure. 

A Rabbit’s Foot speaks to Emily Cameron, Ffern’s creative director and Julia Jackman, the film’s director for their insights on the campaign’s inception, interpreting Arthurian legends and evoking fragrance in film.

The Green Knight is an epic narrative poem—how do you condense that into a three-minute film? What essence did you want to retain?

Julia Jackman: By taking absolutely massive liberties! Ffern, whose films I had loved every time I saw them, brought me a very clear idea of their priorities for The Green Knight. We all wanted to retain that sense of adventure, courage, and mythological lore.

However far we departed from the text, the Green Knight still represents untamed nature and its cyclical forces. But of course, our Green Knight is much more floral-forward, and the epic is only a few minutes long. We condensed it largely into the moment of the central challenge and the immediate aftermath of that.

What first drew you to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as the visual and storytelling inspiration for the campaign?

Emily Cameron: We’ve long turned to myths, legend and folklore for our inspiration and love how they have been interpreted through time, with each generation bringing a new take. We found such compelling natural symbolism in the tale of The Green Knight, and so approached it through this lens, exploring how the story might be linked to the rhythm of the seasons and nature’s power to endure.

The original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is male-led and takes place in winter. How does shifting the story to a female cast and setting it on the Summer Solstice change its impact?

Julia Jackman: I think it definitely brings a lushness to the story and emphasises hope and regeneration. There’s an added feeling of the Green Knight being more closely aligned with Mother Nature. Spoiler alert – everyone keeps their head in this version as well.

What was the starting point for this scent and campaign? Did any particular note of the fragrance become a visual anchor?

Emily Cameron: There were three central ingredients: a climbing, peach-coloured rose, the vines of a sweet pea and the juice of sun-warmed clementine. The clementine and rose became strong visual anchors for the film – one for our midsummer citrus feast, which our knights are attending, and the other to signal the arrival of summer. As the rose blooms at the end, we know the new season is here.

Is scent something you’re interested in as a filmmaker? How did you approach capturing fragrance on camera? We’d also love to hear about the visual world – the colour palette, florals and textures. What atmosphere did you want to evoke?

Julia Jackman: I think I’m always interested in creating a sensory experience, though previously that has manifested more in my being obsessed with colour. I really like films that are tactile and evoke atmosphere as much as possible. There’s a film called The Paperboy—incredibly different tonally to this—that was one of the best depictions of an oppressively hot summer I’ve ever seen. I watched it during deep winter and was still transported.

In a very different way, that was the hope for The Green Knight—to create a specific sensory experience that would transport the viewer to a mythological world. A mythological world that also somehow looks like it would smell wonderful.

So I started with the ingredients for the perfume and built the colour palette from there. Luckily, wild roses and clementines offered a lovely foundation to do something vibrant, and we incorporated them throughout the film while using that palette as a guide for the costumes too. I teamed up again with Susie Coulthard and Clinton Lotter, who did the costumes for my feature, and we were able to build a custom Ffern version of our Knights of the Round Table.

There were key visuals, like sunlight (although there was actually record rainfall when we filmed), peeling clementines, blooming roses and organza, juxtaposed with more classic Arthurian colours and textures like silver armour and swords. It was so fun to try and evoke a perfume. It’s my first time doing this, and all the actors’ too! We had a wonderful time, and everyone was really excited to carry swords.

It’s now a tradition for Ffern to release films alongside its fragrances. Why has moving image become such an essential and lasting part of the brand?

Emily Cameron: Scent has always been hard to describe, and each person has their own interpretation, bringing memory, a sense of nostalgia or their own stories to it. Our intention is to craft vivid cinematic worlds around each fragrance that allow people to fully realise the depth of the scent, its many layers and emotions, and to immerse themselves in something multisensory. If we can offer a little escapism at the same time, and take people out of the everyday, then this feels like a special thing to do.

One of the film’s closing ideas is, “May nature always prevail.” How does that sentiment reflect the philosophy behind Summer 26?

Emily Cameron: We interpreted the Green Knight as an embodiment of nature itself. When Gawain dares to chop off the Knight’s head, it regrows—we found this to be deeply symbolic of nature’s ability to prevail, despite what humankind throws at it. In a world where many of us have lost our belief system, and so much feels uncertain, trusting in the beauty of nature is something we must all hold onto.

Green Knight: Summer 2026 by Ffern is available now