Kookaburras - Aufzucht der Jungvögel

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ornithologist Seán Ronayne from Cobh, Co. Cork is on a mission to record the sound of every bird species in Ireland – that’s nearly 200 birds. Often joined by his partner Alba, he travels to some of the country’s most beautiful and remote locations to capture its most elusive species and soundscapes: the busy seabird colony of Skellig Michael; a native woodland free from road noise in the Burren; the corncrake stronghold of Tory Island; a solitary nest in the Donegal uplands. Along the way we get to know Seán, whose hypersensitivity to sound has proven both a struggle and a strength. At once inspiring and cautionary, Seán’s journey illustrates the beauty and importance of sound, and what listening can tell us about the state of our natural world.

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.

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.