RUSSIA FROM ABOVE

The team of the multiple award-winning Germany From Above series and the overwhelmingly prize-winning ARTE series Migrating Birds this time undertakes a nine-month venture flying over the gigantic empire of the Russian federation: from the Arctic Ocean to the deserts of Kalmykia, from Europe’s highest peak Mount Elbrus to the volcanoes of Kamchatka.

 

Russia From Above is an unprecedented endeavor to experience the vastness of the the country, constantly from the bird's eye view.  The results are spectacular aerials of wild, deserted landscapes, magical cities, wild animals, deserts, taiga forests - and of the hard work in the cold of Siberia. This is Russia as you have never seen it before, filmed from helicopters and with the best aerial cameras worldwide.

 

Russia From Above shows for the first time the metropoles of Moscow and Saint Petersburg from the air and astonishes with breath-taking perspectives of the Caucasus peaks and the Altay Mountains; it presents the celestial beauty of the 200 kilometer wide Volga Delta and accompanies the icebreakers in the Polar Sea, from Murmansk to Arctic Yamal; it features the playful brown bears in their salmon-hunting season in Kamchatka and flies along polar bear moms on the remote island of Wrangel when they are taking their offspring out for the first walks into life.

 

The once forbidden city of Norilsk, the hardest industrial city in the world, is featured as well as the steep and wild diamond mines of Mirny, with the deepest manmade hole on the planet. Russia From Above also glides over the frozen Lake Baikal with its biggest reservoir of sweet waterworldwide, as well as over the steppes of Kalmykia with their antelope herds and pelican colonies.

 

A breathtaking flight over a stunning country.

PETRA HÖFER & FREDDIE RÖCKENHAUS

 

Petra Höfer and Freddie Röckenhaus founded the production company colourFIELD in 1994. Since then they have produced, written and directed over 70 documentary films and series. colourFIELD films got international acclaim, being on the schedules of not just the big German networks and broadcasters ARD, ZDF, WDR, Radio Bremen, HR and French-German joint-venture ARTE TV, but also have been distributed internationally and being chosen by highly ranked international players, such as National Geographic TV, the Discovery Channel, BBC Worldwide, Al Jazeera or NHK Japan, RAI Italy. colourFIELD productions are shown at festivals from Shanghai to Paris, from Tokio to New York.

 

Petra and Freddie have won several prices such as the German Television Award (Deutscher Fernsehpreis), the German Camera Award (Deutscher Kamerapreis), the Gold Award at the New York Festival, Silver Plaque at the Chicago Film Festival or the Audience Award at the ParisScience Festival and the European Science TV Award of the European Union.

 

Before founding colourFIELD, Freddie Röckenhaus was staff editor at Germany‘s prestigious weekly paper DIE ZEIT, later joined as a staff editor Germany‘s most influential nationwide daily paper Süddeutsche Zeitung, where he is still a regular contributing writer. Freddie was awarded Germany‘s leading journalism prize, the Henri-Nannen-Preis.

 

Petra died suddenly during the production of "Russia From Above".

DOKer 2019 — The Opening Film