MFDB

Storyline

O to soar, sweep, hover and glide! Cinema has the power to rekindle humankind’s age-old dreams of flight like no other medium. This film begins with the birth of planet earth: volcanoes erupt all over the earth’s crust, streams of magma surge and seethe, whirlwinds sweep across land masses.The beginnings of life on earth,however, are in sharp contrast to the previous phase: now swarms of birds lead the viewer from one site to another, to places both close at hand as well as to far-away parts of the world.The viewer re-discovers the world – from a bird’s perspective – flying in formation and on lone flights. A large part of this film comprises footage of wild birds. From 1998 to 2001, a huge film crew numbering some 300 people followed the migratory patterns of these “nomads of the air” all around the globe, from season to season. Moreover, in order to obtain more intense scenes as well to be able to film close-ups, more than fifty different species of birds such as geese,ducks, cranes and storks were allowed to become accustomed to human surrogate ‘parents’ in a specially-constructed bird sanctuary. In this way, it was possible to obtain footage of breathtaking beauty without resorting to any kind of tricks or computer animation. Jacques Perrin: “Watching the film should make the viewer feel as if they are actually travelling with the birds. The question of how we managed to film these images should not be uppermost in the cinema-goer’s mind, rather, it will seem quite natural to simply envisage oneself flying around the earth alongside the birds.”

Festivals & Academy awards and others

Berlin International Film Festival 2002
Competition Special Screening