Dancing with the Birds

Some of the world's most majestic birds display delightfully captivating mating rituals, from flashy dancing to flaunting their colorful feathers.

Deutschlands wilde Vögel

Ptice jezer, njihova vrnitev

An excellent display of how humans can rehabilitate and restore an area where a heavy industry polluted the water so severely that it was unsuitable to sustain any kind of life. A a film showing how birds returned to an environment once devastated by industry. The lakes around the northern Slovenian town of Velenje, placed in the Central Europe, are geographic center of the film. They emerged as the land above the lignite mines subsided and the depressions were filled with water. The mines started operating at the end of the 19th century. In the mid 20th century a power plant was built that caused a severe pollution of the lake waters to the extent of the lakes not being fit for any kind of life. As a consequence many birds moved from these parts. After a long ecological restoration that started in the mid 1980s, life returned to the water. Gradually the birds returned as well, including some there were previously never observed in this area.

Pica Pica

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.

In the Wake of the Flood

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.

Attenborough's Paradise Birds

David Attenborough tells the remarkable story of how these " birds of paradise " have captivated explorers , naturalists, artists, filmmakers and even royalty.

All That Breathes

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.

Big Blue Goose

In this RKO Sportscope short, a naturalist and his wife go to Louisiana bayou country to hunt a particular species of goose.

Water Birds

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.

The Hummingbird Effect

Costa Rica's motto is Pura Vida - Pure Life - and this deceptively small country is bursting with some of the most spectacular wildlife and pristine ecosystems in the world. All this diversity thrives, in part, thanks to one surprising little creature: hummingbirds. Venture across Costa Rica's wild and rugged landscapes, from volcanic peaks to coastal jungle to misty cloud forests and discover the nation's dazzling diversity of hummingbirds. Watch how these tiny birds play an outsize role in maintaining some of the richest and wildest environments on Earth, where a whole community of creatures, such as macaws and monkeys, enjoys The Hummingbird Effect.

Flyways

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.

The Pigeon People

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.

Early Spring Wetlands

Wildlife in an early spring wetland.

Birds of America

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.

To Teach a Bird to Fly

This experimental nature documentary by Minna Rainio and Mark Roberts depicts climate change and the wave of extinction from the point of view of our near future. Actually, it depicts the age we live in now, or rather its fateful consequences.

Die wahren Angry Birds

Angry birds are very popular- especially among game-playing kids, but are there real angry birds out there? Birds battle to survive, find food, and shelter, avoid danger, and raise their young. Life's hard, but will they get in a flap?

Islands of the Vampire Birds

The story of Darwin's finches and their relationship with other creatures of the Galapagos; tracing their evolution, how the islands were formed and how it's main inhabitants got there.

Hummingbirds: Jewelled Messengers

David Attenborough narrates this close up look at these tiny pollinators captured in flight as never before. Acrobats of the air - flying jewels - iridescent partners of countless plants: hummingbirds are amongst the most remarkable creatures on our planet.

Toutes Isles

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.

Bill & Daisy

after mourning the passing of his late wife, Bill finds the courage to travel to New York City and reconnect with his favorite mistress.