Inner nature

Directed and Produced by Andrew Young and Susan Todd

While technology and medicine have dramatically improved life expectancy and brought remarkable convenience, control, and connectivity to our lives, anxiety, depression, and loneliness are all on the rise. Machine learning and AI beg us to reimagine the future, yet climate change and the loss of biodiversity threaten the very notion of one. It’s a familiar paradox, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

Humans, like all life on Earth, evolved in nature over millennia. Only in the last blink of our history have we become a species primarily of city-dwellers, spending 90% of our time indoors. Are we losing something that is fundamental to our humanity? Is it time to put the “nature” back into Human Nature?

INNER NATURE is a feature documentary about ordinary people who overcome extraordinary challenges by reconnecting with nature —and the surprising science that makes this transformation possible. Their remarkable stories, and the discoveries of scientists from around the globe, demonstrate nature’s profound importance to our brains, bodies, and spiritual well-being —revealing that we are literally hardwired for the natural world we came from.

Character-based and international in scope, INNER NATURE follows individuals who are battling crisis —a Mexican banker ravaged by cancer, an American child drowning in screen addiction, a Japanese executive on the brink of suicide, an African American woman struggling with the trauma of racism, and an Amazonian shaman facing the destruction of his forest homeland— five shattered lives made whole by the healing power of nature.

From our susceptibility to heart disease and the cost of our healthcare to the success of our children in school —and even our propensity for aggression or creativity— scientists are learning that the absence of nature adversely affects us in profound ways. Until now, the mechanisms behind this phenomenon have been elusive and hard to measure, but with the advent of portable brain scanners and other monitoring devices scientists can now see how our bodies respond to different environments in real-time, and the implications are staggering. As we urbanize, access to nature’s benefits is rapidly becoming a privilege, making the intersectionality of racial and environmental justice one of the defining issues of our time.

Featuring mind-blowing science, awe-inspiring fMRI brain imagery, and a cinematic style replete with stunning natural beauty and immersive soundscapes that transport the audience on an experiential journey, INNER NATURE challenges us to rethink our relationship to the natural world, and in so doing, rekindle our innate desire to care for what we love.

We are currently seeking donations, corporate sponsorship and partnerships to complete the production of Inner Nature and to finance its educational impact campaign. For more donation information, contact Susan Todd at susan@archipelagofilms.com

Flying High

Directed by Tyler Schiffman and produced by Stephen Ives and Amanda Pollak—

with executive producers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon

In fifty-one days, Johannes Fritz, flying a microlight, led a flock of Northern Ibis seventeen hundred miles, from Germany to Spain. His team taught the newly hatched young birds to be imprinted on their human mothers – just as in previous years. However, this autumn he led them on a new route that avoids the Alps. Instead of migrating to Italy, he flew them to the south of Spain to a new over-wintering habitat. It was a long way - 2319 kilometres - almost three times longer than the previous journey. It took him a mammoth 43 days.

But after this epic trip the ibis “class of 2023” are now the first generation of what we hope becomes a new migration tradition that will continue for many years to come.

In this rapidly changing world we must be constantly on our toes to help our rare and vulnerable wildlife.

For Fritz, saving the Northern Bald Ibis is not just a job, but his life’s purpose.

In the News

The New York Times: To Stop an Extinction, He’s Flying High, Followed by His Beloved Birds

The New Yorker: The Long Flight to Teach an Endangered Ibis Species to Migrate

The Guardian: This bird came back from extinction - now scientists in an aircraft are teaching it to migrate

BBC: The daredevil flight to save rare birds

Puma Paradise

Directed and Produced by Ann Prum, Doug Schultz, and Diego Araya

Puma Paradise touches on themes of humanity, the power of the natural world, the importance of apex predators and our interconnectedness of all species.

It is principally observational, following Romina’s rewilding work over a year and this will form the narrative spine of the story. The other story arc that will be interwoven is the puma story-following Rupestre as she raises her cubs. Intercut with this main vision are the other elements. The other filmic layers amplify Romina’s mission and beautifully illustrate the allure of the charismatic puma and the Patagonian landscape in ways never seen before.