BIRDS (with Lord Summeraisle)

A devoted pair of little owls set up home in an old orchard in rural Herefordshire. From spring blossom to autumn apples, a year in the life of the parent birds, their baby owls and the old fruit trees.

A disaster truck, which is equipped to meet practically any emergency that arises in the community; In Oklahoma a breeder of under-slung cattle, making possible smaller grazing areas for milk herds; a deburping machine, of all things.

After losing her beloved father, Helen finds herself saved by an unlikely friendship with a stubborn hawk named Mabel. Through the bond, Helen rediscovers the beauty of being alive.

Fanatical birdwatchers have descended upon a small town in the Arkansas bayou in hopes of finding the celebrated Ivory Billed Woodpecker. Declared extinct in the 1940’s, the bird has apparently been spotted by numerous experts. Enter amateur birder and poet Johnny Neander, who has convinced his taciturn sidekick that he will be the one to find the elusive woodpecker. The ensuing chaos divides the small town between believers and non-believers, rabid environmentalists and opportunistic entrepreneurs. Much like the bird itself, Woodpecker explores the intersection of fact and fiction, manipulating our notions of documentary and narrative techniques within a tragic comedy about hope, perception, and some very very strange birds.

Helen Macdonald's bestseller H Is for Hawk told the story of a grieving daughter who found healing in training a goshawk. The goshawk is one of Mother Nature's own fighter jets, capable of finding and killing its prey with the speed of a lightning bolt. Now Macdonald digs deeper into the world of these raptors by following a family in the wild while raising and training a new goshawk of her own.

The peculiar trait of the cuckoo, which tricks another bird into hatching her egg for her, is shown in color photography.

When a young boy shoots at a bird and misses, he embarks on a search to find where the bullet went.

After five years in the making, Carlo Ferraro presents this documentary on neotropical birds, with insights on flying, reproduction, and much more.

A Secrets of Nature short.

When an ornithologist’s funding gets cut, her nurturing of abandoned bird eggs leads to a transformation as her marriage crumbles.

The starling is a common bird that lives in close proximity to humans. It nests in hollows in trees, under roof tiles or in bird boxes. In Mikael Kristersson's film we see starlings from a new angle, inside a nest, from when they first inspect the nest site in early spring until the last chick flies away in June.

A Secrets of Nature short film.

In the remote Manambolomaty lakes region, a globally unique ecosystem is home to both the Sakalava indigenous people and the endangered Madagascar Fish eagle. Through close collaboration with the local community, the region has become a stunning success for conservation - even as the rest of Madagascar's nature suffers heavy losses.

Sid James learns of the joys of owning a budgerigar.

When a boy is pushed by his Father to steal a rare Peregrine egg, he finds strength in the natural world to stand up to his Father and experiences his first sense of freedom.

In Go Tell It to the Mountain, the speculative realms of archaeology and forensics intersect with these rumours. The word-of-mouth stories blur the boundaries between reality and myth, between the presence of human and animal. The video installation invites audiences to explore her intangibility and anonymity in a secret valley where all gossip distorts. Rumors nurture this creature. Different voices guide you. She is ever-changing. ‘Go Tell It to the Mountain’ follows a mystery about a bird-woman living in the deep in the forest. The mountainserves as a backdrop where rumors are shaped, distorted and reborn. Whispers weave a narrative that grows on its own. This sculptural installation invites people into her timeless surroundings. By digging into the earthy surface, We encounter a possible hybrid bird-human in an eternal space, remnants of her existence and gossips perpetually surrounding her.

This documentary tells the story of the inimitable kea. The 'Clown of the Alps' is heralded as the world’s smartest bird (its intelligence rivals a monkey’s). Kea are famous on South Island tracks and ski fields for their insatiable (and destructive) inquisitiveness. Curiosity almost killed the kea when it was labelled a sheep killer, and tens of thousands were killed for a bounty. After shots of baby kea being fed, there is extraordinary night footage in clip four of the 'avian wolf' in action. The award-winning film makes a compelling case for the charismatic kea as a national icon.

Arne Sucksdorff’s short documentary observes gulls raiding nests and stealing eggs with ruthless persistence. Though presented as pure nature study, the film was widely read as an allegory of Nazism—a symbolic parable of predation and violence during wartime. Sucksdorff himself denied such intent, but remarked that “a film that is not open to interpretation is a dead film.”

Whoever came up with the term 'bird brain' never met these feathered thinkers, who use their claws and beaks to solve puzzles, make tools and more.

A solitary cat, displaced by a great flood, finds refuge on a boat with various species and must navigate the challenges of adapting to a transformed world together.