Microscopic Mysteries

Insecticide, mon amour

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

This is the story of a vegetable garden, from the first seeds to the harvest. But this garden is different, because here the gardener has decided to banish pesticides and other chemicals, and to be helped only by discreet workers, the insects. As we dive into the heart of this plant kingdom, we discover thousands of tiny lives that organize themselves as in a micro-society: decomposing insects, recyclers, pollinators, the workers of the garden work to maintain a fragile balance within the vegetable garden. As the plants grow and begin to produce their first vegetables, the incredible interactions between insects and plants help protect the future harvest. But it is also their personal stories that punctuate the life of the garden. Between parades, mutual aid and attempted putsch, the story of the vegetable garden thus takes the form of a true nature tale.

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

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.

Short documentary about true bugs and humans. Short film is also a compassion practice and small journey from human perspective to other playful ways to see.

Collar de moscas

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.

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.

Das Alien Insekt

La vispa Teresa (“Lively Theresa”) is based on a well known song; a girl, ten, catches a butterfly and all the other insects intervene to save it.

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.

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.

Satoshi Kuribayashi and his team filmed the insects for over an astonishing 430 days, resulting in breathtaking images and scenes from a still fairly unknown world. Watch a mantis sneak up on its prey and catch it with its razor sharp claws. Experience a deadly, thrilling wasp fight. Sit back and watch the world of the insects unfold before you like you have never experienced it before.

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.

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

Jean Comandon, pioneer of microcinematography, recorded this time-lapse film in c. 1910, using a ultramicroscope. The film show living spiral shaped syphilis bacteria moving among red blood cells of frog. Notice the back-and-forth movement, characterizing the disease-causing form. (Wikipedia)

Untangling the web of cultural and historical ties underlying Japan's deep fascination with insects.

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