Microscopic Mysteries

Luis Buñuel’s observation – “You can find all of Shakespeare and de Sade in the lives of insects” – was the inspiration for this experimental horror movie, in which human actors wordlessly enact the life-cycles of wasps and bees. Its purpose is to depict with emotion, humor and unnerving specificity an alternative society that really exists and has nothing to do with human beings. A highly stylized depiction of nature in all her deceitful glory.

UNIVERSUM cameraman Wolfgang Thaler and Bert Hoelldobler, a leading authority on ants, bring us face-to-face with the mysterious world of these social insects.

A story about survival, belief in the physical memory of things, as if still-life was always part of the scientific possibility or of the nightmare of extinction.

A Documentary on the Creation of OVO, by Cirque du Soleil

BP documentary film exploring the natural beauty of oil under the microscope, and through a variety of other techniques.

Collar de moscas

A scientist explains how the savagery and efficiency of the insect world could result in their taking over the world.

A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.

Perturbation

„The Fabulous Insects – Ants“ shows the diversity, beauty and exciting strategies of ants in their respective habitats. Whether in the tropics of South America or in the native climes of Europe - the world of ants is full of surprises. The biomass of ants and humans in the world is about the same. Next to us, ants are probably the most adaptable creatures on the planet. Whether rainforest, savannah, forests or moors - ants populate every terrestrial habitat. You can observe particularly exciting natural history not only in the distant tropics, but also in densly populated Central Europe.

Shot at two cutting-edge research labs which specialize in the evolution of butterflies and moths, BIopixels is an animated short film exploring the world of evolutionary biology on the microscopic scale. The images - rendered from collections containing over 50,000 specimens - were take by microscopists over three years to create the animated shorts Nanoscapes and Biopixels. Both the animation and the score play with concepts of pattern, time, density and other means of development common to biological evolution.

„The Fabulous Insects – Beetles“ presents colourful and bizarrely shaped species as well as the largest beetle in the world, in its habitat in the South American rainforest. The film also shows that the colourful diversity and beauty of beetles and their exciting natural history can be experienced right on our doorstep, in Central Europe. In aesthetic and never-before-seen macro slow-motion and time-lapse shots, the viewer experiences the world of beetles, which is more beautiful, colourful and surprising than many of us realise. No other group of animals on earth is so diverse: beetles come in a wide variety of ‘models’, from miniature versions a quarter of a millimetre in size to large versions twenty centimetres long. Some beetles flaunt jewel-like iridescent colours, while others wear plain black. Some come in eye-catching warning colours, while many wear an astonishing camouflage.

In this playful essay film, the filmmaker investigates our culture's discomfort with all things many-legged.

Story of the Silk Moth

In 1908, amateur naturalist and pioneering filmmaker Percy Smith stunned early cinema goers with his footage of the juggling fly. Hailed as the father of Natural History film, Smith was a hugely influential visual pioneer, inventing many techniques that are still used today. Being both a genius and an eccentric, we follow his life from his earliest films, to the collapse of his house from his mould experiment to his ultimate suicide. We also meet Natural History icon Sir David Attenborough, who was so amazed by Smith’s films in the 1930s that they inspired him to get into natural history.

This film was produced as an extension of a research film on the metamorphosis of the fly. It successively shows the hatching of the eggs, the nutrition and growth of the larvae, swarming and underground penetration, the formation of the pupa, metamorphosis and organization of the adult insect.

Who knows about springtails? And among those for whom this name rings a bell, how many have already seen them? Yet, these small animals, similar to insects, are present in all terrestrial ecosystems. Springtails are undisputed soil regulators. Scientists recognize them today as absolutely essential, especially in the search for pollutants, disruptors, and all the variations that affect our soils, but this little animal is almost unknown. Thanks to extremely precise cameras, as close as possible to these microscopic animals, a teeming life is revealed before our eyes. According to the seasons, the film invites us to get into the intimacy of the springtails, to discover their morphology, their role and their usefulness in the ecosystems of the planet while rubbing shoulders with other organisms in the same environments.

The World's Biggest and Baddest Bugs, follows host Ruud Kleinpaste, as he embarks on an entomological odyssey around the globe in search of the ultimate biggest and "baddest" creepy crawlies. The World's Biggest and Baddest Bugs will then profile the "stars" of the show, with Ruud explaining in his audience-friendly style exactly what makes them so amazing.

Susan and Ted are creating an insect zoo, learning about various insects.

Vosička Aphelinus Mali