In the early 1980’s two hundred pairs of common terns (Sterna hirundo) were forced to abandon their last natural nesting place on a river island near a major European capital Riga. Looking for a new habitat, the birds chose the flat pebbled roof of a concrete island – a printing house – in the middle of the city. The first generation of birds to grow up on this roof and fly to Southern Africa every winter have covered the distance from the Earth to the Moon. During the film various human attitudes towards the terns will emerge. The attitude of the birds is clear – they view things form above.
In the early 1980’s two hundred pairs of common terns (Sterna hirundo) were forced to abandon their last natural nesting place on a river island near a major European capital Riga. Looking for a new habitat, the birds chose the flat pebbled roof of a concrete island – a printing house – in the middle of the city. The first generation of birds to grow up on this roof and fly to Southern Africa every winter have covered the distance from the Earth to the Moon. During the film various human attitudes towards the terns will emerge. The attitude of the birds is clear – they view things form above.
2001-04-26
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The Iron Man takes us on an introspective journey into the life of Toni, a man who finds in art and nature the essential pillars of his existence. The creation of iron and stone sculptures, together with work in the countryside as a gardener, help him to find beauty in the simplicity of life. His vision of life, as if he were a ‘rural philosopher’, will teach us to break down stigmas about mental health and to look at life from a hopeful perspective.
Some of the world's most majestic birds display delightfully captivating mating rituals, from flashy dancing to flaunting their colorful feathers.
In the first half of the 19th century, the French ornithologist Jean-Jacques Audubon travelled to America to depict birdlife along the Mississippi River. Audubon was also a gifted painter. His life’s work in the form of the classic book ‘Birds of America’ is an invaluable documentation of both extinct species and an entire world of imagination. During the same period, early industrialisation and the expulsion of indigenous peoples was in full swing. The gorgeous film traces Audubon’s path around the South today. The displaced people’s descendants welcome us and retell history, while the deserted vistas of heavy industry stretch across the horizon. The magnificent, broad images in Jacques Loeuille’s atmospheric, modern adventure reminds us at the same time how little - and yet how much - is left of the nature that Audubon travelled around in. His paintings of the colourful birdlife of the South still belong to the most beautiful things you can imagine.
Reclaiming what was once stolen from him, a man journeys back to the place of his childhood nearly 80 years after his world came crashing down.
On the eve of her 70th birthday, Canadian writer Margaret Atwood set out on an international tour criss-crossing the British Isles and North America to celebrate the publication of her new dystopian novel, The Year of the Flood. Rather than mount a traditional tour to promote a book's publication, Atwood conceived and executed something far more ambitious and revelatory--a theatrical version of her novel. Along the way she reinvented what a book tour could (and maybe should) be. But Atwood wasn't selling books as much as advocating an idea: how humanity must respond to the consequences of an environmentally compromised planet before her work of speculative fiction transforms into prophesy.
Jim Moir and his wife Nancy continue on their ornithological adventure as they seek out their favourite seasonal birds and learn how they best evoke the festive spirit of Christmas.
You don't have to travel to faraway countries to observe wildlife, because the fauna of the big city also provides surprises every day. Contrary to expectations, many bird, mammal and insect species have adapted to the concrete jungle. They have become experts of the urban space. “My Wild Neighbors” takes a poetic look at the lives of animals in the city.
It is a documentary about mostly inner-city birds. It is meant to examine their lives in a more metropolitan context as they become increasingly tangled in our everyday lives.
Some champion exhibits from the National Cat Club Show and the Combined Bird and Aquaria Show, described by W. Cox-Ife, F. Hopkins, and L.C. Mandeville.
In Pica Pica Kristersson invites the viewer to be enthralled for an hour and a half by the vicissitudes of magpie life. Opposing himself to the current nature films that tend to highly compress time in order to end up with a concentrated sequence of action-elements Kristersson leaves rhythm and tempo almost completely up to the magpies themselves. With great integrity he filmed the daily, social and emotional life of a species of birds that has many points of contact with human life. Thus, the movie offers us the oppurtunity to view our own everyday existence through other eyes, from a world right above our heads, but yet so far away.
Did Cartier dream of making a country from this land of a million birds? In his records of his exploration he certainly marvelled at seeing the great auks that have since disappeared from Isle aux Ouaiseaulx, the razor-bills and gannets that are gone from Blanc-Sablon, and the kittiwakes from Anticosti, all the winged creatures of all the islands which he described as being "as full of birds as a meadow is of grass". And that's not even counting the countless snow geese.
The city from the unique perspective of the many wild animals and plants that inhabit it. Seen through the eyes of the adventurous urban cat, Abatutu.
Water Birds is a 1952 short documentary film directed by Ben Sharpsteen. The film delves into the still waters of lagoons and marshes to the wild blue wilderness of the vast oceans, to experience the beauty and variety of their majestic birds, each perfectly designed for its habitat. It won the Oscar for Best Short Subject, Two-Reel.
Against the darkening backdrop of New Delhi's apocalyptic air and escalating violence, two brothers devote their lives to protecting one casualty of the turbulent times: the bird known as the black kite.
Western Australia's iconic black cockatoos are in crisis. Their numbers have fallen dramatically over the past few decades and all three species in the south west of WA could become extinct in just 20 years unless something is done to protect their habitats. With the loss of the banksia woodlands on the Swan Coastal Plain to housing, Carnaby's Black Cockatoos have come to depend on the once vast exotic pine plantations on Perth's northern fringe.
Flyways follows endangered migratory shorebirds as they travel their ancient migration routes around the planet. Using nanotechnology and global tracking from the International Space Station, the project will uncover the paths of the world’s greatest, feathered endurance athletes and shine a light on the scientists and international lawyers who are collaborating to save them.
after mourning the passing of his late wife, Bill finds the courage to travel to New York City and reconnect with his favorite mistress.
The long running, often bitter scientific debate over the origin of birds and the evolution of flight.