Amazing World of the Mini Beasts

Das große Insektensterben

November 2018 •German

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.

Microscopic Mysteries

October 1932 •English

This short film takes a look through a microscope's lens at insect life.

The Hellstrom Chronicle

May 1971 •English

A scientist explains how the savagery and efficiency of the insect world could result in their taking over the world.

Jewels

September 2013 •English

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.

Insekten, Superhelden auf sechs Beinen

April 2017 •German

Insecticide, mon amour

November 2015 •French

Groenkijkers

December 2023 •Dutch

True Bug

September 2022 •Finnish

Short documentary about true bugs and humans. Short film is also a compassion practice and small journey from human perspective to other playful ways to see.

The Pink Egg

April 2017 •English

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.

Collar de moscas

May 2002 •Spanish

The World's Biggest and Baddest Bugs

April 2009 •English

The World's Biggest and Baddest Bugs, follows host Ruud Kleinpaste, as he embarks on an entomological odyssey around the globe in search of the ultimate biggest and "baddest" creepy crawlies. The World's Biggest and Baddest Bugs will then profile the "stars" of the show, with Ruud explaining in his audience-friendly style exactly what makes them so amazing.

Hatching by Cirque du Soleil

January 2013 •English

A Documentary on the Creation of OVO, by Cirque du Soleil

Ants - Nature's Secret Power

January 2004 •English

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.

Edwardian Insects on Film

March 2013 •English

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.

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo

March 2009 •Japanese

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

Das Alien Insekt

October 2001 •German

The Adventures of a Blue Fly

January 1954 •French

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.

La vispa Teresa

December 1939 •Italian

La vispa Teresa (“Lively Theresa”) is based on a well known song; a girl, ten, catches a butterfly and all the other insects intervene to save it.

The Marvelous Wild World of the Vegetable Garden

May 2022 •French

This is the story of a vegetable garden, from the first seeds to the harvest. But this garden is different, because here the gardener has decided to banish pesticides and other chemicals, and to be helped only by discreet workers, the insects. As we dive into the heart of this plant kingdom, we discover thousands of tiny lives that organize themselves as in a micro-society: decomposing insects, recyclers, pollinators, the workers of the garden work to maintain a fragile balance within the vegetable garden. As the plants grow and begin to produce their first vegetables, the incredible interactions between insects and plants help protect the future harvest. But it is also their personal stories that punctuate the life of the garden. Between parades, mutual aid and attempted putsch, the story of the vegetable garden thus takes the form of a true nature tale.