Films by Oliver Heuss

Germany 2020, 52 min
by Daniela Pulverer, Boris Raim

What happens when an animal perishes in the depth of the forest? Who clears up the remains? Why aren’t we surrounded by carcasses? After all, death is a constant and universal visitor …Every death means life for zillions of other living organisms: it is the initiator of a complex cycle we all depend upon. But despite its importance, we know relatively little about the animals that move in after a body has died, the organisms that radically change the body’s chemistry, and the plants that recycle the valuable nutrients contained in every carcass. A film about life after death…

2016, 52 min
by Christian Baumeister

Europe’s biggest industrial area turns green!For more than 150 years the Ruhr Area was not only the heart of Germany’s economy, but also Europe’s most extensive industrial zone. Mines, steelworks and chemical industries dominated the region. River systems collapsed and the skies were ash-grey.But over the last decades the area has been transformed. Due to the crisis in coal and steel, many industries were shut down, and huge areas were abandoned. A whole variety of animals returned to fill the vacuum; invading factory ruins, and re-colonizing badlands, artificial hills and lakes. Now peregrines breed on old smokestacks, natterjack toads occupy temporary pools and blue-winged grasshoppers display on hot and stony wastelands.This film not only tells the story of a unique comeback, it also reveals some stunning animal behavior.Above all it celebrates the power and adaptive capacity of life itself.