Directed by:
Jacques LoeuilleScreenplay:
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Breath-taking nature, huge swarms of birds of all kinds: when naturalist and artist John James Audubon arrived in the United States in the early nineteenth century, he stepped into a real paradise. But a fragile one, as the Frenchman quickly realised. In Birds of America, filmmaker Jacques Loeuille composes a love letter to the founding father of nature conservation. Audubon not only made a name for himself, but also immortalised a vast, hugely varied range of birds in his sophisticated paintings, bursting with colour, energy and drama. Ground-breaking work, recording this diversity of bird life before it was banished from the earth forever. Following a route along the Mississippi, Birds of America shows how much was lost in a relatively short time through industrialisation, greed and indifference. Animals were made extinct, Native Americans persecuted, landscapes despoiled. A saddening view of what humanity can do. As well as a passionate ode to what nature has to offer. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)
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James Audubon seems to be a well-known name in certain circles in the USA, but for me it was my first encounter with this pioneer in the field of ornithology. At first glance, the documentary is about Audubon's “The Birds of America”, which continues to amaze even today, but at second glance, it deals with much broader themes – from extinct species that we know about thanks to contemporary records, among other things, to ecological changes that have had and are having an impact on human and animal populations.
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