Underground Farmers

Collar de moscas

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.

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

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.

Vosička Aphelinus Mali

An exploration of the diversity of moths and butterflies from caterpillars to larvae to chrysalis to winged flight. The documentary covers camouflage and other anti-predatory tactics along with uniqueness of different species and amazing feats and colors.

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

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.

The Last Bumblebee is a solution-based documentary featuring interviews with scientists, and environmentalists discussing the importance of bumblebees as pollinators and the various threats they face.

How did our world come into being? Beneath our feet lies a class of animals far more numerous than any other. Let us embark on a journey through time dating back 400 million years, and witness how scattered pieces fit together to form a complete whole. Insects – Hidden Heroes takes us into the microcosm with stunning visuals. Narrated by screen icon Katharina Thalbach, the film poses a question: Must it be humanity or nature?

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.

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.

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.

Perturbation

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

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

„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.

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.