Michael Schlamberger Directs New Universum Doc

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VIENNA: The new Universum two-parter Zambezi: The Thunderous River is to be co-produced by ORF, the Graz film production company ScienceVision, NDR Naturfilm, WDR, ARTE, National Geographic Channel U.S. and National Geographic Channels International under the leadership of Michael Schlamberger.

The doc spotlights this river in Southern Africa by giving a glimpse of every classic African animal species. Schlamberger, the director and main cameraman, spent nearly two years filming for the project. During this time he witnessed many small dramas, which took place both during the drought and in the rainy season. For him, one of the highpoints during filming was the sight of catfish hunting in their tens of thousands and forming swarms covering hundreds of metres. “However in this particular year,” remembers Michael Schlamberger, “the water was extremely cloudy. It was hardly possible to see further than ten to 20 centimetres below the surface. The huge numbers of fish also tempt lots of crocodiles, and it is likely that this behaviour had never been documented before for precisely this reason. We therefore followed the catfish day after day, but without success. The problem is not finding them, because you can hear their fins flapping as they drive the small fish together. But they are sensitive to electrical impulses and avoid the camera. So we had to modify a small lipstick camera that emitted only minimal electrical impulses. With this we succeeded in filming hundreds of catfish as they swam right past the camera.

Schlamberger was also very keen to document a specific behavior in elephants that is normally only seen in the circus. “Right at the end of the dry season, when there is hardly any grass left and when everything within reach on the trees has been grazed, a few adult bulls make use of a special trick—they have learned that they can extend their reach by a couple of metres if they stand up on their back legs. This behaviour can only be seen in Mana at the end of the dry season, and we were fortunate, after days of waiting, to be able to shoot some HD film of a couple of bulls.”