French cinematic master returns with celebration of birds in flight

A film that is already being hailed as one of the greatest wildlife movies to be made – with lyrical shots of more than 30 species of bird migrating across 50 countries – will go on general release in French cinemas this week.

The film – Le Peuple Migrateur [The migratory people] – was made by the veteran French producer, director and actor Jacques Perrin, who startled the world five years ago with a successful, full-length movie about insects, Microcosmos.

His new movie, which should go on release in Britain early next year, took four years to make. Many of the birds shown – ranging from condors to swans, geese and terns – were raised from chicks in France to familiarise them with the presence of human beings and motorised hang-gliders or microlights. They were then taken back to their native regions, released and filmed as they migrated alone or with other wild birds of the same species.

The film was inspired by the work of Bill Lishman, a Canadian naturalist and film maker, who managed to fly a microlight alongside wild geese he had raised. Although many other film makers have captured migratory birds in flight, Mr Perrin says that his film is the first to show so many species, so close-up, flying against the background of so many spectacular landscapes, from Monument Valley to the Amazon rainforest.

Unlike in many wildlife films, the extraordinary techniques of the film makers themselves are barely shown. The commentary is minimal. "I wanted people to see the birds, not our efforts to film them," Mr Perrin said. "This is a lyrical celebration, a pastoral symphony but not a documentary."

One of the most moving sequences in the film shows wild geese from Canada migrating at dawn over New York, with clear shots of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. Mr Perrin said he considered cutting the shot from the final film after the buildings were destroyed on 11 September but decided to leave it as a symbol of "hope and regeneration" and the immutable patterns of the natural world.

"It was not just the beauty of birds in flight which attracted me, it was the courage of migratory birds, their capacity to carry on, whatever the obstacles. I had come to a point in life where I had no further interest in the world we have made, with all its frontiers and linguistic and cultural horizons." Mr Perrin's previous work as director, producer or actor ranges from the political, anti-totalitarian movie Z, in 1969, to the much admired Himalaya, two years ago, the story of the childhood of a Tibetan chieftain.

More than 450 people worked on Le Peuple Migrateur over four years, producing 300 miles of film. Of this, only 0.5 per cent survives in the final movie, which lasts for one hour and 32 minutes. "Some of our teams spent two or three months in a country and brought back only one minute of usable footage," Mr Perrin said. "But what a minute!"