While green spaces have long been neglected in cities, citizen mobilization has for several years helped to rediscover the beneficial effects of urban forests. Exploring various innovative nature restoration projects in Canadian cities, Urban Forests acts as a real antidote to pessimism by showing us that the ecological solution is closer than it seems.
The happy tranquility of Bugville is shattered when the populace learns that a colossal skyscraper is to be built over their tiny town.
The city from the unique perspective of the many wild animals and plants that inhabit it. Seen through the eyes of the adventurous urban cat, Abatutu.
Whether political, sociological or social questions. In one's own life and that of others. Living, eating, loving. In art and philosophy. Everywhere man asks the question of "naturalness". How do I behave naturally? Do I have to behave naturally? What is natural? What is nature? This question occupies the most diverse people, have the most varied traits and characteristics. Man and woman as natural order or structures created by man? Meat consumption as natural predator behavior or factory farming? Nature-related living and urban planning? The topic covers all questions of human life. In this short film, this question should be discussed abstractly. Not by specific subject-relatedness, but by the juxtaposition of subjective ideas about the abstract nature of nature from the perspective of a Western white man.
In the early 1980’s two hundred pairs of common terns (Sterna hirundo) were forced to abandon their last natural nesting place on a river island near a major European capital Riga. Looking for a new habitat, the birds chose the flat pebbled roof of a concrete island – a printing house – in the middle of the city. The first generation of birds to grow up on this roof and fly to Southern Africa every winter have covered the distance from the Earth to the Moon. During the film various human attitudes towards the terns will emerge. The attitude of the birds is clear – they view things form above.
