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Kestrel's Eye

Directed by Mikael Kristersson


film still

KESTREL'S EYE is a beautiful film about a family of kestrels, living in the tower of an old church, in a small village in the southwest of Sweden. Not meant to inform us about the life of a kestrel, the film is an attempt to compel us to feel like one.

Kristersson filmed the kestrels at close range for several years. Aside from technical contraptions, patience was his secret weapon. The camera enters the time and space of the birds themselves, becoming one of the family, surviving winter, welcoming spring, hunting and devouring prey with them.

But Kristersson adds a parallel level to the film. KESTREL'S EYE is also a film about the life of humans. People walking dogs, digging graves, children coming home from school - these everyday activities are also witnessed, from the birds' point-of-view.

Not a film in which humans have dominion, KESTREL'S EYE gives us the unique privilege to examine the birds' behavior, and through them our own.

"To put it simply, the extraordinary documentary KESTREL’S EYE is a spectacle of life and death. This remarkable and beautiful Swedish film... views the world through the eyes of two kestrels or European falcons, that make their home in the upper reaches of a 13th century church.... This film by Mikael Kristersson astonishes by capturing reality with a fidelity and intimacy that prompt old-fashioned wonder at how the feat was accomplished. KESTREL’S EYE is something to see."—Lawrence Van Gelder, The New York Times

"Stunning natural photography."—Documentary Films

"The viewer succumb(s) to an almost meditative stage, where the sounds of the birds become a language."—DOX Film Magazine

"Mesmerizing... Kristersson has filmed the kestrels with striking intimacy. ... KESTREL'S EYE is an artistic film that not only invites, but requires the viewer to succumb to its deliberate calm and focus. Highly recommended."—Rue Herbert, MC Journal: the Journal of Academic Media Librarianship

** First Prize, 1999 Munich Documentary Festival
** Planete Prize, 1998 Vues sur les Docs (France)
** 1998 Nordic Documentary Award, Nordic Panorama (Sweden)

86 minutes / color
Release Date: 1999
Copyright Date: 1998
Sale: $175
Rental/VHS: $100


Subject areas: Animal Behavior, Animals, Birds, Ecology, Environment, Ornithology


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Last updated 05/31/2008