Siegfried Bergmann

The Ways of an Animal Filmmaker

Siegfried Bergmann, with his oeuvre of around 80 films, is one of the most important German wildlife filmmakers alongside Heinz Sielmann and Bernhard Grzimek. But Bergmann was more interested in the ant lion in the Lausitzer Sands than the lion in the African savannah. What began in the 1960s with fantastic animal observations using special technology soon became a representation of comprehensive ecological relationships and the search for solutions to environmental problems - no easy undertaking in the GDR. All this always with a fresh breeze of humor and playfulness in filmmaking.