Microscopic Mysteries

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Coming in all shapes and sizes, bacteria are present in every corner of the Earth. Their purposes and types are even more diverse, with only 1% being truly harmful. Dive into the world of Bacteria to experience the latest discoveries and scientific knowledge surrounding these plentiful and necessary microbes.

Title cards introduce images we watch without narration; they are displays of shape and color. François de Roubaix's electronic music accompanies these images, photographed under a polarizing microscope. The crystals appear to move like tiny organisms: small four-part fans share the frame with flowing lines of pink. Multiple patterns appear side by side.

Ant colonies are one of the wonders of nature: complex, organised… and mysterious. This programme reveals the secret, underground world of the ant colony, in a way that’s never been seen before. At its heart is a massive, full-scale ant nest, specially designed and built to allow cameras to see its inner workings. The nest is a new home for a million-strong colony of leafcutter ants from Trinidad. For a month, entomologist Dr George McGavin and leafcutter expert Prof Adam Hart capture every aspect of the life of the colony, using time-lapse cameras, microscopes, microphones and radio tracking technology. The programme explores how these tiny insects can achieve such spectacular feats of collective organisation. It also reveals the workings of one of the most complex and mysterious societies in the natural world – and shows the surprising ways in which ants are helping us solve global problems.

Struggling with a mid-life crisis, Robert Oelman leaves his psychology career in the early 1990s to photograph rare and exotic insects. After moving from the United States to Colombia, he forms a special bond with his subjects in the Amazon rainforest. This connection enables him to make striking photographic images of new and undocumented species. After more than 20 years of traveling, searching, and photographing, his quest culminates with a New York City gallery show where he finally shares his images with the public.

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.

The Hidden World is a 1958 American science documentary film produced by Robert Snyder and narrated by Gregory Peck. The film is about insects. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Shot with a microscope, we follow a few hours in the lives of doomed pond microbes as they are each decimated by a growing air-bubble.

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.

Groenkijkers

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

This documentary focuses specifically on insects. Giving you an unbelieveably up close and intimate view of the many unique secrets of the bug world. Answering scientific questions on how and why they have evolved certain bizarre adaptations, whilst using stunning imagery never seen before.

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.

Vosička Aphelinus Mali