The Antwerp Zoo covers a fair extent of ground, and was already in 1910 generally considered as an important one. A large number of views of birds and animals were taken and hand coloured. In those days, the monkey house was in for much attention. People found that the various comic incidents added a touch of whimsicality.
The Dangers of the Fly is an educational film made by Ernesto Gunche and Eduardo Martínez de la Pera, also responsible for Gaucho Nobility (1915), the biggest blockbuster of Argentinean silent cinema. De la Pera was a talented photographer, always willing to try new gadgets and techniques. This film experiments with microphotography in the style of Jean Comandon's films for Pathé and it is part of a series which included a film about mosquitoes and paludism and another one about cancer, which are considered lost. Flies were a popular subject of silent films and there are more than a dozen titles featuring them in the teens and early twenties.
Abu Kiffan is the name of a reef near Safaga in Egypt. In the film we are drowned in sound, time slows down and we are given a closer look at what’s going on. Part two of Holthuis’ series Careless Reef, four films about the world under water.
Shot on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and in the Bahamas, Ocean Wonderland brings to you the amazing beauty of the many varieties of coral and the immense diversity of the marine life thriving there.
Guinea Pig Diaries is an unfiltered look into the lives of guinea pigs and the people who adore them, breed them, show them, and rescue them.
In 1966, John Harlin II died while attempting Europe's most difficult climb, the North Face of the Eiger in Switzerland. 40 years later, his son John Harlin III, an expert mountaineer and the editor of the American Alpine Journal, returns to attempt the same climb.
Every year, thousands of Antarctica's emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. This amazing, true-life tale is touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader... to adventure!!
A documentary from Erkki Karu, one of the earliest pioneers of Finnish cinema: This government-produced propaganda film introduces the nature, sports, military, agriculture and capital of Finland.
Directed by Patrick Gramm, 'The Pigeon People' (2023) takes you deep into Arizona's underground pigeon racing scene as racing rivals prepare for and compete in the Grand Canyon Classic - a 350-mile pigeon race from Utah to Arizona that crosses over the Grand Canyon.
Exploring the private lives of sharks as they hunt, rest, clean and reproduce.
An account of the journey that King Alfonso XIII of Spain made to the impoverished shire of Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in the region of Extremadura, in 1922.
Known only by her research number, Grizzly 399 has been a fixture in Grand Teton National Park since 2007, becoming the world's most famous grizzly bear. Now 399 is raising four cubs in the face of human encroachment, a warming climate, and the threat of losing protection under the Endangered Species Act as citizens from Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana attempt to remove grizzlies from the protected list. In a riveting story full of twists and turns, hope and heartbreak, Grizzly 399 stands as a symbol of the clash between humans and the wild.
Leonie’s dream is to become a pig farmer, just like her parents. She wanders happily around the farm, helping out in any way possible. She tends to the pigs, and is present from the fertilisation of the sows to the moment the truck leaves for the slaughterhouse. The family farm teaches her about the circle of life. However, new laws on nitrogen emissions have undermined the economic viability of the farm, and bankruptcy looms. Together with her cat Skeet, Leonie watches the last pigs disappear from the farm, and she realises that her dream of becoming a pig farmer might not come true.
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.
Ida, the grandniece of Simona Kossak, travels to the Bialowieza Forest at the Polish-Belarussian border. Sorting through the photos left by Lech Wilczek, Ida uncovers the life he had with Simona, captured in the photographs, footage and memories. A moving and powerful documentary about the life of Simona Kossak, a biologist, ecologist and activist known for her efforts to preserve the remnants of natural ecosystems in Poland and for living among the animals in the Białowieża Forest for over 30 years.
Film historians, and survivors from the nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures take the audience from the early failed attempts by scientists and inventors, to the triumph of the talkies.
Clouds 1969 by the British filmmaker Peter Gidal is a film comprised of ten minutes of looped footage of the sky, shot with a handheld camera using a zoom to achieve close-up images. Aside from the amorphous shapes of the clouds, the only forms to appear in the film are an aeroplane flying overhead and the side of a building, and these only as fleeting glimpses. The formless image of the sky and the repetition of the footage on a loop prevent any clear narrative development within the film. The minimal soundtrack consists of a sustained oscillating sine wave, consistently audible throughout the film without progression or climax. The work is shown as a projection and was not produced in an edition. The subject of the film can be said to be the material qualities of film itself: the grain, the light, the shadow and inconsistencies in the print.
Narrated by Academy Award winners Sissy Spacek and Herbie Hancock, River of Gold is the disturbing account of a clandestine journey into Peru's Amazon rainforest to uncover the savage unraveling of pristine jungle. What will be the fate of this critical region of priceless biodiversity as these extraordinarily beautiful forests are turned into a hellish wasteland?