Eugen Schuhmacher
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| The Last Paradises - On the track of rare animals | |
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 The Last Paradises book cover |
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| Directed by | Eugen Schuhmacher |
| Produced by | Eugen Schuhmacher |
| Written by | Eugen Schuhmacher |
| Starring | Eugen Schuhmacher Helmut Barth Freimut Kalden |
| Music by | Erich Bender Günter Fuhlisch |
| Distributed by | Globus Film |
| Release date(s) | February 28, 1967 |
| Running time | 116 min. |
| Language | German German (with subtitles) English dubbing |
| Budget | DM 1.000.000 (about $ 250.000) |
| IMDb profile | |
Eugen Schuhmacher (actually Eugen Josef Robert Schuhmacher) (August 4, 1906 Stuttgart, Germany — January 8, 1973 Munich, Germany) was a German zoologist and pioneer of animal documentaries. Besides Bernhard Grzimek and Heinz Sielmann he belongs to the German documentary filmmakers with an international reputation.
His movie Natur in Gefahr (Nature in Danger) from 1952 was one of the first attempts which deals with the subject endangered species and it is an alerting report of the destruction of the nature paradises and the extinction of species. But only 14 years later he should make his masterpiece The Last Paradises - On the Track of Rare Animals, a film which belongs to the milestones of nature conservation documentaries.
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[edit] Personal background
Eugen Schuhmacher's career began in the early 1930s with educational and cultural shortfilms about the wildlife in South America and the German Reich. In the next four decades he made documentaries (feature length and shortfilms) about animals, the Inca culture, and the natives from North America, South America and Papua New Guinea. This movies were awarded at festivals in Berlin, Venice, Cannes and Trento. His feature film In the Shadow of the Karakoram (Im Schatten des Karakorum) received the German Film Prize for best documentary in 1955. In 1958 he discovered the German television for his work and he made one of the first television series about endangered species. 37 episodes of On the Track of rare Animals (Auf den Spuren seltener Tiere) were shoot, a series which has taken the audience on a journey to Galapagos, Papua New Guinea, Africa, and other exotic places. This series was very popular in German television. Schuhmacher has died at age 66 of cancer. His last movie Europas Paradiese (Europe's paradises) had its premiere after his death.
[edit] Pioneering for the World Nature Conservation
The filming of Schuhmacher's movie The Last Paradises - On the Track of Rare Animals (Die letzten Paradiese) began in spring 1959. The movie is one of the most ambitious movie projects about endangered species to date. Schuhmacher and his cinematographer Helmut 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 the most endangered animals of the world. 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 (e.g. Turkey, Spain, Germany, Poland, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, India, Java, USA, and Peru) on all continents and to the most famous national parks. The footage of this movie is unique. Species like the Hamilton's frog (Leiopelma hamiltoni) or the Javan Rhinoceros were filmed for the very first time and the sequences of the Kakapo, 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 are outstanding and of an intensity which was never seen before. The film received awards at the Documentary filmfestival at Trento and was a worldwide success. There is also a book reference which was translated into many languages and was a huge success too.
[edit] Selected movies
- 1955: Im Schatten des Karakorum
- 1967: The Last Paradises: On the track of Rare animals (Die letzten Paradiese)
- 1973: Europas Paradiese
[edit] Selected books
- 1968: The Last of the Wild: On the track of Rare animals (with Gwynne Vevers ; Winwood Reade), Collins, London, 1968
- 1968: The Last Paradises: On the track of Rare animals, DOUBLEDAY & CO, INC. New York
- 1970: Alaska: Vast Land on the Edge of the Arctic (with Heinrich Gohl), Kümmerly & Frey Geographical Publishers, Berne, Schwitzerland
