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The Last Paradises: On the Track of Rare Animals
The Last Paradises: On the Track of Rare Animals
	The Last Paradises
Directed by	Eugen Schuhmacher
Written by	Eugen Schuhmacher
Produced by	Eugen Schuhmacher
Narrated by	Wolf Ackva
Cinematography	Eugen Schuhmacher; Helmuth Barth; Freimut Kalden
Music by	Erich Bender ; Günter Fuhlisch
Distributed by	Globus Film
Release date	28 February 1967 (West Germany);
Running time	116 min.
Languages	German; German (with subtitles); English dubbing
Budget	DM 1.000.000 (about $ 250.000)

The Last Paradises: On the Track of Rare Animals (in German Die letzen Paradiese) is the title of a German nature documentary from 1967. It was filmed by Eugen Schuhmacher and Helmuth Barth.

Background

The filming began in spring 1959. Schuhmacher and his cinematographer Helmuth Barth (who has later worked on the Academy Award-winning movie The Hellstrom Chronicle) have gone on a 7-year travel (from 1959 to 1966) to film several of the most endangered animals of the world. It had costs of about $250,000. There is also a book reference which was translated into many languages. It was narrated by German actor Wolf Ackva.

Plot summary

After an animated introduction about the history of extinct species (e.g. the quagga, the great auk and the dodo) it has gone to 60 countries and territories (including Turkey, Spain, Germany, Poland, Australia, Borneo, Chile, Spitzbergen, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, India, Java, United States, and Peru) on all continents and to the most famous national parks. Species like the Hamilton's frog (Leiopelma hamiltoni) or the Javan rhinoceros were filmed for the very first time. Other sequences including footage of the kākāpō, the takahe, the dancing of the red-crowned cranes, the fishing Kodiak bears, the whooping crane, the Asiatic lion, the Komodo dragon, the tuatara, the indri, and the birds of paradise. In particular the filming of the whooping cranes was the result of adventurous circumstances. Because the whooping crane was among the rarest birds in the world in the early 1960s there was no permission to entry the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. Fortunately the cranes were provided with food by a plane and during that time the birds came to a wetland in the proximity of the fence. Schuhmacher and Barth planted themselves in a boat in a channel in front of the fence and were able to take some footage from a female and a chicken.

Awards

The film received awards at the Documentary film festival at Trento

References

Eugen Schuhmacher (1967): The Last Paradises: On the track of rare animals. Translated by Gwynne Vevers and Winwood Reade. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., Natural History Press.
Eugen Schuhmacher (1970): Ich filmte 1000 Tiere. Ullstein Verlag, Berlin (German)