Video Catnip

Springtails: The hidden soldiers of Earth

Who knows about springtails? And among those for whom this name rings a bell, how many have already seen them? Yet, these small animals, similar to insects, are present in all terrestrial ecosystems. Springtails are undisputed soil regulators. Scientists recognize them today as absolutely essential, especially in the search for pollutants, disruptors, and all the variations that affect our soils, but this little animal is almost unknown. Thanks to extremely precise cameras, as close as possible to these microscopic animals, a teeming life is revealed before our eyes. According to the seasons, the film invites us to get into the intimacy of the springtails, to discover their morphology, their role and their usefulness in the ecosystems of the planet while rubbing shoulders with other organisms in the same environments.

Bird Woman

Annedore takes care of orphan birds. They give her that which humans througout her turbulent life could never give her: love.

Deutschlands wilde Vögel

To Teach a Bird to Fly

This experimental nature documentary by Minna Rainio and Mark Roberts depicts climate change and the wave of extinction from the point of view of our near future. Actually, it depicts the age we live in now, or rather its fateful consequences.

Ghost Lands

Follow herons, finches, and snow geese though hazy marshes and moonlit forests to trace the footsteps of renowned abolitionist Harriet Tubman and explore what it means for us to physically dwell with the ghosts of America's past. Traveling along the Harriet Tubman historical byway, Ghost Lands reflects on the the natural and unnatural landscapes Tubman would have encountered on the Delmarva Peninsula.

Cats, Birds and Fishes

Some champion exhibits from the National Cat Club Show and the Combined Bird and Aquaria Show, described by W. Cox-Ife, F. Hopkins, and L.C. Mandeville.

Hummingbirds of Hollywood

Amid the glamour of Hollywood, a woman finds herself on a transformative journey as she nurtures wounded hummingbirds, unraveling a visually captivating tale of love, fragility, healing, and the delicate beauty in profound acts of kindness. Meet Terry Masear, a retired UCLA professor who rescues the hummingbirds that descend on Los Angeles every spring in a seasonal frenzy of breeding. Wounded hummingbirds find their way to Masear as her mobile hotline rings off the hook from callers who find them and require her expertise. Among Masear’s diminutive patients are Cactus, Jimmy, Wasabi, Alexa, and Mikhail, whose lives are brought into sharp focus through breathtaking, beautifully detailed photography. The compassion and empathy that Masear shows her Lilliputian charges serves as a lesson to us all — the delicate beauty in profound acts of kindness.

Bill & Daisy

after mourning the passing of his late wife, Bill finds the courage to travel to New York City and reconnect with his favorite mistress.

Pica Pica

In Pica Pica Kristersson invites the viewer to be enthralled for an hour and a half by the vicissitudes of magpie life. Opposing himself to the current nature films that tend to highly compress time in order to end up with a concentrated sequence of action-elements Kristersson leaves rhythm and tempo almost completely up to the magpies themselves. With great integrity he filmed the daily, social and emotional life of a species of birds that has many points of contact with human life. Thus, the movie offers us the oppurtunity to view our own everyday existence through other eyes, from a world right above our heads, but yet so far away.

Understanding Myself as an Amphibian

This queer ecology documentary explores the sexual diversity of the wildlife around us. Director May Matchim draws connections between these incredible species and her own journey accepting her Transness. The title is a reference to the green frog, an amphibian which is able to change its sex as it matures. This film includes a variety of animal and plant subjects, including same-sex bird parents raising chicks together, and a group of salamanders that's entirely female. It also examines the exclusionary attitudes in biology and conservation throughout time, and how these attitudes have influenced our understanding of animal behaviour.

I Am Maru

A collection of home videos of Maru the Cat, a very fun Scottish Fold from Japan. This was produced as a part of the deluxe version of the book of the same name.

Rock Dove

Visit almost any city and you will likely notice pigeons with deformed or missing feet. This is the result of fibres, often human hair, becoming tangled around their toes and gradually cutting off circulation, a downside to living alongside humans and a metaphor for pigeon and human species entanglement. Rock Dove follows the efforts of a group of dedicated volunteers who meet on Sundays to catch pigeons and painstakingly remove the string and hair from their feet feet. The film focuses in on their hands as they patiently carry out this act of care across the species divide.

memory consolidation 01

memory consolidation 01