Dead Birds Flying High

Synopsis

Birds, bugs and butterflies: The collection of northern German farmer and photographer Jürgen Friedrich Mahrt (1882 -1940) is odd and a little bit uncanny. The documentary Dead Birds Flying High explores the quiet eccentric’s life and work. In 1919 he began to photograph the local flora and fauna and started to observe the extinction of species.

In a northern German attic: boxes of pinned butterflies, carefully hand-coloured photographs of the local flora and fauna, hundreds of stuffed and dusty birds – Jürgen Friedrich Mahrt (1882–1940) did a great job. His collections echo a present that doesn’t exist anymore. And yet all signs of an ecological crisis can be found buried in them.

Dead or alive? There is an uncanny element in Jürgen Friedrich Mahrt’s photos: One can’t always be sure whether the animal captured in the frame is the result of hours of waiting or just a specimen staged to look lifelike. The ripples around the duck on the pond are missing, the bird of prey looks suspiciously calm directly into the lens. Mahrt crossed borders. He sacrificed his duties as a farmer to the urge to document natural environments we hardly find in nature today. Ancient forests, enchanted moors, macro views of fat, colourful caterpillars – almost magical images that make one sad in view of a variety irretrievably lost. His great-granddaughter Sönje Storm has the quiet eccentric’s estate analysed by experts, shows peat cutters, extinct species and a changing countryside. An exceedingly stimulating excursion, congenially accompanied by the scurrilous electronica sounds of Dominik Eulberg and Bertram Denzel. [65 DOK Leipzig, Carolin Weidner]

With: Esther Ruelfs, Sven Schumacher, Martin Husemann, Detlef Kolligs, Matthias Preuß, Wolfgang Scharenberg, Werner David, Hans Hermann Storm, Wolfgang Rüther

Cast & Crew

Director

Sönje Storm
Producer

Sönje Storm
Director of photography

Alexander Gheorghiu
Editor (Cut)

Halina Daugird
Sound

Roman Pogorzelski
Sound Design

Roman Pogorzelski
Original Score

Dominik Eulberg, Henry Reyels, Bertram Denzel

Festivals/awards

2022
Golden Dove – 65 DOK Leipzig
64 Nordic Film Days Luebeck
2023
Stranger Than Fiction Dokumentarfilmfest, Germany
Filmfest Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Achtung Berlin FF
63 KFF Krakow
30 dokumentarfilmwoche hamburg
dokKa Karlsruhe
2024
19 ÖKOFILMTOUR – Brandenburgisches Festivals des Umwelt- und Naturfilms

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