The Last Paradises: On the Track of Rare Animals

• Eugen Schuhmacher
• Helmuth Barth
• Wolf Ackva ( narrator)

The last paradise is a German nature film from the year 1967., He was shot by Eugen Schuhmacher and Helmuth Barth.

Background

The film is a production commissioned by the IUCN. Filming began in the spring of 1959 and are still among the most complex in the animal movie. 1,000,000 DM, the cost of this film. Shoemaker and his cameraman Helmuth Barth (who later collaborated on the excellent with the Oscar Documentation The Hellstrom Chronicle ) went on a seven -year voyage ( 1959-1966 ) to capture the then most endangered species in the world in the movie. As a narrator served the German actor Wolf Ackva. There is also a book about this film ( published by Bertelsmann ), which was translated into many languages.

Action

After a short animated film introduction on historical extinctions, such as the Dodo, the Great Auk and the quagga it went in over 60 countries and territories (eg, Turkey, Spain, Germany, Poland, Australia, Borneo, Chile, Svalbard, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, India, Java, United States, and Peru) on all continents and to the most famous national parks. Species such as the Hamilton - frog from the island of Iceland Stephens (New Zealand ) and the Javan rhino filmed for the first time.

Other scenes included shots of animal species such as the kakapo, the Südinseltakahe, the red-crowned crane, the Kodiak bear, the whooping crane, the Indian lion, the Komodo dragon, the Indri and Birds of Paradise. Often, the team had to travel several times and hardships to the affected regions before successful camera shots could arise. Especially the shots with the Whooping Crane proved to be particularly difficult and would hardly come about because shoemakers and Barth did not receive permission to enter the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. Due to the fact that the whooping crane at the beginning of the 1960s was one of the rarest birds in the world, only rangers were allowed to enter this sanctuary. From time to time the cranes were fitted with the aircraft with food. This circumstance shoemaker and Barth took advantage and posted themselves in a boat in a canal that ran in front of the sanctuary fence. In one feeding the cranes came in a wetland that was close enough to the fence and so could do with her ​​boy shoemaker and Barth footage of a crane mother. Shoemaker finished his documentation with the appeal to create reserves and " the last paradise " to preserve it for future generations.

Find out more

A film series of the same title produced by Dr. Hans Jöchler since 2000.

Awards

The film won the 1967 Golden Neptune at the Mountain Film Festival in Trento.

Reviews

The lexicon of the International Films wrote: An excellent documentary, which threatened with extinction animals shows in their natural habitat.