Urtzen

The Whale and the Raven

September 2019 •English

Director Mirjam Leuze’s The Whale and The Raven illuminates the many issues that have drawn whale researchers, the Gitga’at First Nation, and the Government of British Columbia into a complex conflict. As the people in the Great Bear Rainforest struggle to protect their territory against the pressure and promise of the gas industry, caught in between are the countless beings that call this place home.

Microcosmos

September 1996 •French

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.

Cantábrico

March 2017 •Spanish

Spreading about 400 km in parallel to the Cantabric Sea, the Cantabrian Mountains, located North to Spain are a natural top wall full of animal and vegetable life that live in an extreme conditions across any year. Making a review along the four seasons, the documentary examines the situation and the relation of the different species, focusing in the brown bear's life in addition with the salmons travel along of thousand kilometers to return home to spawn, showing too the difficult of a landscape where danger is everywhere, including in the smallest size. A fascinating travel for revealing the wonder of nature.

The Living Desert

November 1953 •English

Although first glance reveals little more than stones and sand, the desert is alive. Witness moving rocks, spitting mud pots, gorgeous flowers and the never-ending battle for survival between desert creatures of every shape, size and description.

Koyaanisqatsi

April 1983 •English

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

Im Wald der wilden Bienen

January 2022 •German

Year of the Hedgehog

October 2009 •English

It's springtime, the air is tepid, the skylarks chirp, and spring flowers cover the meadows and the forest grounds. Out of a pile of leaves a fluttery, sniffling snout tip appears: it's a hedgehog awakening from its winter sleep heading into the light of a new year, having only two things in mind: food and finding a partner.

The Himalayas

March 2011 •English

The highest mountain range in the world, the Himalayan range is far reaching, spanning thousands of miles, and holds within it an exceptionally diverse ecology. Coniferous and subtropical forests, wetlands, and montane grasslands are as much a part of this world as the inhospitable, frozen mountaintops that tower above. The word Himalaya is Sanskrit for abode of snow, fitting for a stretch of land that houses the world’s largest non polar ice masses. Extensive glacial networks feed Asia's major rivers including the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra. More than a billion people rely on these glacier-fed water sources for drinking water and agriculture. The Himalayas are not only a remarkable expanse of natural beauty. They're also crucial for our survival.

Malika the Lion Queen

April 2021 •English

Follows life of Malika, a lioness in South Africa’s Kruger National Park as she battles to survive.

Filomena

March 2021 •Spanish

The Filomena snowstorm in central Spain was undoubtedly exceptional. Its return period in many places exceeded half a century, particularly in Madrid. Despite accurate weather forecasts, Filomena brought roads, public transport, health centers, and other basic services in Madrid to a standstill. What went wrong in the management of this weather event?

I Stand: The Guardians of the Water

March 2017 •English

First hand interviews and on the ground footage give a stirring account of The Standing Rock Sioux Nation's and water protectors' opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline

Serengeti Shall Not Die

June 1959 •German

The film tells of the beginnings of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. At the end of the 1950s, the Tanzanian National Park Administration wanted to fence in the protected area around the Ngorongoro Crater. Bernhard and Michael Grzimek were invited by the national park administration in 1957 to get a precise picture of the animal migrations and to provide the national park administration with the values ​​they needed for their project. Using a new counting method with two airplanes, the Grzimeks found out that the migration of the herds was different than assumed.

Watershed: Exploring a New Water Ethic for the New West

March 2012 •English

As the most dammed, dibbed, and diverted river in the world struggles to support thirty million people and the peace-keeping agreement known as the Colorado River Pact reaches its limits, WATERSHED introduces hope. Can we meet the needs of a growing population in the face of rising temperatures and lower rainfall in an already arid land? Can we find harmony amongst the competing interests of cities, agriculture, industry, recreation, wildlife, and indigenous communities with rights to the water? Sweeping through seven U.S. and two Mexican states, the Colorado River is a lifeline to expanding populations and booming urban centers that demand water for drinking, sanitation and energy generation. And with 70% of the rivers’ water supporting agriculture, the river already runs dry before it reaches its natural end at the Gulf of California. Unless action is taken, the river will continue its retreat – a potentially catastrophic scenario for the millions who depend on it.

Uncharted Amazon

March 2016 •English

Deep in the jungles of Peru, a silky anteater is fighting to stay awake and a mother humming bird is struggling to raise her chick. Through millions of years of evolution they have developed bizarre relationships and unexpected strategies to overcome them changing conditions, but for all their ingenuity, they were never prepared for the arrival of a new species on the scene.

Earth

October 2007 •English

An epic story of adventure, starring some of the most magnificent and courageous creatures alive, awaits you in EARTH. Disneynature brings you a remarkable story of three animal families on a journey across our planet – polar bears, elephants and humpback whales.

Deep Blue

May 2003 •English

Deep Blue is a major documentary feature film shot by the BBC Natural History Unit. An epic cinematic rollercoaster ride for all ages, Deep Blue uses amazing footage to tell us the story of our oceans and the life they support.

Tracing Light

January 2025 •German

Light is a fascinating phenomenon. Without light, there would be no cinema, no film – and no life. So light is at the origin of everything, and yet it remains invisible to the eye until it hits matter. This moment is – quite literally – the starting point of Thomas Riedelsheimer’s latest work, for the springtime spectacle of rainbow shreds in the cinematographer and documentary filmmaker’s flat became the starting point of a search for the origin of the images we form of this world. For this quest he dived deep into two spheres that seem to follow different laws but always strive to fathom the magical: physics and art.

Animals in Love

December 2007 •French

Translated literally as "Animals in Love," the French-language documentary Animaux Amoreux depicts various species of the animal kingdom in courting, mating and reproduction activities. Laurent Charbonnier directs.

The Ants and the Grasshopper

May 2021 •English

Anita Chitaya has a gift: she can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and maybe she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home in Malawi from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge: persuading Americans that climate change is real. Traveling from Malawi to California to the White House, she meets climate sceptics and despairing farmers. Her journey takes her across all the divisions that shape the USA: from the rural-urban divide, to schisms of race, class and gender, and to the American exceptionalism that remains a part of the culture. It will take all her skill and experience to help Americans recognise, and free themselves from, a logic that is already destroying the Earth.

The River: A Year in the Life of the Tay

July 2019 •English

Author Helen Macdonald follows Britain’s greatest river over four seasons, encountering salmon, beavers and the microscopic creatures helping to answer science's biggest questions.