• Director(s):

    CORNUEL (JEAN-MARIE), GUIDOIN (JEAN-LUC)

  • Producer(s):

    ARTE FRANCE, SCREENSHOT PRODUCTION, POLE PRODUCTION ET COMMUNICATION

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2015

  • Language(s):

    German, French

  • Rights:

    TV, DVD, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD

Guyana is known for its vast forests. We visit one of the most beautiful primary rainforests in this French region of South America. It owes its survival to miniscule and almost invisible beings - billions of insects.

These insects are, in a way, the miniature guardian angels of these “green giant” trees. Without them, there would be no forest and no animals. We are inspired and fascinated by their shapes and colours, and want to capture their amazing appearances and subtleties. In order to do so, we must adapt to their size using macro-photography techniques. We meet Jérôme Orivel, an entomologist who has discovered an astonishing new species: the allomerus. The allomerus is almost invisible, and for a reason: it spends its entire life hidden in plant stems. In the evening, using a lamp, we collect magnificent insects and butterflies, and photograph them in our studio set up under a wooden roofing structure called a “carbet”. We recreate a décor and an atmosphere that are as strange and spectacular as the insects themselves. Using our StackShot, a device often employed in medical imagery, we can obtain images with a very wide depth of field, enabling the insects’ entire bodies to be seen in sharp focus. A complex system, but an ultra efficient one!