Backdrop fallback

Elementa

Elementa

Share

Elementa

"Prepare yourself for full immersion"

2020

0h 43m

6.5(8 votes)

Documentary

Overview

A black-and-white visual meditation of wilderness and the elements. Wildlife filmmaker Richard Sidey returns to the triptych format for a cinematic experience like no other.

Where to Watch

Links & Resources

Website IMDbView

Social & External

Production Companies

The people behind it

Cast & crew

Creative team

Directed by: Richard Sidey

Similar Movies

PBS Nature - An Original DUCKumentary

PBS Nature - An Original DUCKumentary

Ducks are true originals. There are more than 120 different species of ducks in all, a fantastical group of complex characters. Ducks have a talent for survival, and life stories filled with personality and charm. Each bird is more fun than the last, and will leave you wanting more.

Adrift

Adrift

"Adrift" is shot on the arctic island of Spitzbergen and in Norway. It combines time-lapse photography with stop-motion animation of the landscape. Through camera-angles and framing the film gradually dislocates the viewer from a stable base where one loses the sense of scale and grounding.

Reflection

Reflection

Eerie images of landscapes after the Fukushima nuclear disaster shot on black and white 8mm.

Kielings kalte Welt

Andreas Kieling, a famous German documentary film maker, explores the coldest places in the world. He observes various animals in Patagonia, the Falkland Islands, Cape Horn, South Georgia and Antarctica.

A Pinto for the Prince

A Pinto for the Prince

In 1977, Prince Charles was inducted as honorary chief of the Blood Indians on their reserve in southwestern Alberta. The ceremony, conducted in the great Circle of the Sun Dance, commemorated the centennial anniversary of the original signing of Treaty 7 by Queen Victoria.

Transitions

Transitions

A look at the various modes of transportation made for the Expo '86 World Fair in Vancouver, Canada.

Billion Dollar Fish

Billion Dollar Fish

The River Danube is home to a fish that grows larger than the Great White Shark. Although it leads a secretive life, the Beluga Sturgeon – the King of the Danube – produces the most prized food in the whole world. For over 200 million years, the 8-metre long fish had no enemies, and yet today it is on the verge of extinction. Evolution did not prepare the fish for pollution, river regulation and overfishing. Beluga caviar is traded for up to 20,000 dollars per kilogramme. Ironically, the high price of this precious product could save the animals from a premature disappearance from planet earth.

Video Catnip

Video Catnip

HEY KITTYS LOOK! YES! It's time for kitty's favorite show...VIDEO CATNIP! We'll start with some fun and games for you and your human, then go right into the "Cats Only" part of the show. So get ready for some CAT-A-CLYSMIC fun with NO PAWS in the action.

The Earth Wins

The Earth Wins

The Earth Wins explores the delicate balance between man and Mother Earth, our inter-dependence and the impact of man's actions upon the earth and her inhabitants. With music from Coldplay, The Temper Trap, New Order, indigenous musicians, and commissioned choral pieces, The Earth Wins is a visceral experience celebrating the magnificent diversity of the earth's riches and asking the most important questions of all, "How do we save ourselves from causing the planet's destruction?"

Namibia: The Spirit of Wilderness

Namibia: The Spirit of Wilderness

With more than 300 days a year, the sun dominates this country so much that it’s even shining from their flag. It’s a barren land, sometimes it’s like it’s from another planet but still familiar. It is land of contrasts and colours with wide landscapes and fascinating deserts. Influenced by various cultures during colonization and now reborn from the shadows of Apartheid in 1990, Namibia gives a beautiful collage of culture, language, art, music and food. Everyone who loves an adventure should travel to Namibia, the precious corner of our world full of incredible natural wonders. The experience of endless landscapes and an unparalleled blaze of colour make Namibia unforgettable. NAMIBIA – THE SPIRIT OF WILDERNESS invites you on a trip whose fascination will never let you go: From the Namib Desert over the breath-taking Fish River Canyon to the spectacular Etosha National Park where you will see wild elephants, antelopes, giraffes, zebras and lions.

Fantastic Vision

Fantastic Vision

Footage filmed in Spain, subjected a new visual effects process. Deslaw devoted himself to the discovery of a new machine that enabled film to be developed while using a new method called solarisation.

Namatjira Project

Namatjira Project

From the remote Australian desert to the opulence of Buckingham Palace - Namatjira Project is the iconic story of the Namatjira family, tracing their quest for justice.

Portrait of a City

A documentary portrait of Calcutta

Dancing with the Body

Dancing with the Body

The lives of Jaipong dancers who persistently uphold tradition amidst economic pressures and changing times. Through their moving bodies and distinctive voices in traditional performing arts, these women dance not only for the stage but also to survive. Their voices, whether vocal expressions, soft utterances, or sinden singing, serve as the living spirit and "voice" that sustain and preserve their cultural heritage. An intimate portrait of resilience, steadfastness, and the voice in traditional arts that is gradually being marginalized.

The Tree of Authenticity

The Tree of Authenticity

Photographer and visual artist Sammy Baloji’s fascinating film essay explores the Democratic Republic of Congo’s colonial history and its ecological significance. Drawing on research from the 1930s, the film highlights the Congo Basin’s vital role in consuming carbon dioxide and shaping global environmental balance over a century.

Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik

Short film about performance, realized when Nam June Paik participated in Karlheinz Stockhausen's piece "Originale" in Cologne in 1961.

Hidden Japan

Hidden Japan

The culture of Japan is incredible, from bloom festivals to ultra-modern cities. But there are also more than 130 mammals and 600 bird species dwelling in Japan’s 6852 islands. This island chain is long enough to span climate zones, providing a huge range of habitat.

Man with a Movie Camera: The Global Remake

Man With a Movie Camera: The Global Remake is a participatory video shot by people around the world who are invited to record images interpreting the original script of Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera and upload them to this site. Software developed specifically for this project archives, sequences and streams the submissions as a film. Anyone can upload footage. When the work streams your contribution becomes part of a worldwide montage, in Vertov’s terms the “decoding of life as it is”.

Natsik Hunting

Natsik Hunting

Mosha Michael made an assured directorial debut with this seven-minute short, a relaxed, narration-free depiction of an Inuk seal hunt. Having participated in a 1974 Super 8 workshop in Frobisher Bay, Michael shot and edited the film himself. His voice can be heard on the appealing guitar-based soundtrack…. Natsik Hunting is believed to be Canada’s first Inuk-directed film. – NFB

The Snow Guardian

For 40 years, billy barr has lived alone in small cabin in one of the coldest places in the United States – the ghost town of Gothic, CO. With no goals of proving anything, or even knowledge that the climate was changing, billy started collecting data about snowpack to pass the time in his isolated part of the world. When climate researchers at the Gothic-based Rocky Mountain Biological Lab discovered billy’s decades of detailed records, they uncovered clear and compelling evidence of climate change. As someone who has had to learn to survive in such a harsh environment, billy shares some advice about how to move forward on our changing planet.

Recommended Movies

Polar Bear

Polar Bear

A new mother’s memories of her own youth prepare her to navigate motherhood in the increasingly challenging world that polar bears face today.

The Year Earth Changed

The Year Earth Changed

Never-before-seen footage shows how our living in lockdown opened the door for nature to bounce back and thrive. Across the seas, skies, and lands, Earth found its rhythm when we came to a stop.

Bears

Bears

Filmmakers Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey chronicle a year in the lives of an Alaskan brown bear named Sky and her cubs, Scout and Amber. Their saga begins as the bears emerge from hibernation at the end of winter. As time passes, the bear family must work together to find food and stay safe from other predators, especially other bears. Although their world is exciting, it is also risky, and the cubs' survival hinges on family togetherness.

Baraka

Baraka

A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.

Born to Be Wild

Born to Be Wild

Born to Be Wild observes various orphaned jungle animals and their day-to-day behavioural interactions with the individuals who rescue them and raise them to adulthood. The film unfurls in two separate geographic spheres. Half of it takes place in the rain forests of Borneo, where celebrated primatologist Dr. Birute Galdikas assists baby orangutans; the other half takes place on the arid savannahs of Kenya, where zoologist Dame Daphne Sheldrick works with baby elephant calves.

Naqoyqatsi

Naqoyqatsi

A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.

Earth

Earth

An epic story of adventure, starring some of the most magnificent and courageous creatures alive, awaits you in EARTH. Disneynature brings you a remarkable story of three animal families on a journey across our planet – polar bears, elephants and humpback whales.

Grizzly Man

Grizzly Man

Follows the story of "Grizzly Man" Timothy Treadwell and what the thirteen summers in a National Park in Alaska were like in his attempt to protect the grizzly bears. The film is full of unique images and a look into the spirit of a man who sacrificed himself for nature.

Powaqqatsi

Powaqqatsi

An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.

Koyaanisqatsi

Koyaanisqatsi

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

Heal

Heal

A documentary film that takes us on a scientific and spiritual journey where we discover that by changing one's perceptions, the human body can heal itself from any disease.

Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee

A nature documentary centered on a family of chimps living in the Ivory Coast and Ugandan rain forests. Through Oscar, a little chimpanzee, we discover learning about life in the heart of the African tropical forest and follow his first steps in this world with humor, emotion and anguish. Following a tragedy, he finds himself separated from his mother and left alone to face the hostility of the jungle. Until he is picked up by an older chimpanzee, who will take him under her protection.

Kiss the Ground

Kiss the Ground

Sheds light on an alternative approach to farming called “regenerative agriculture” that could balance our climate, replenish our vast water supplies, and feed the world.

An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth

A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.

Before the Flood

Before the Flood

A look at how climate change affects our environment and what society can do to prevent the demise of endangered species, ecosystems, and native communities across the planet.

Earth: One Amazing Day

Earth: One Amazing Day

An astonishing journey revealing the awesome power of the natural world. Over the course of one single day, we track the sun from the highest mountains to the remotest islands to exotic jungles.

Encounters at the End of the World

Encounters at the End of the World

Acclaimed filmmaker Werner Herzog travels to Antarctica, where he finds a desolate, beautiful landscape, largely untouched by human hands, and a group of truly unique people who risk their lives to study it. Centered at McMurdo Station, the United States' largest Antarctic research center, Herzog explores the minds of the scientists willing to abandon civilization and endure volatile conditions to learn more about the continent's wildlife and awe-inspiring natural wonders.

Ghost Elephants

Ghost Elephants

In Angola's mist-shrouded highlands, three KhoiSan master trackers embark on a spiritual quest to rediscover the legendary "ghost elephants" of Lisima, creatures presumed lost but remembered in ancestral trance, ritual, and memory.

Pandas

Pandas

In the mountains of Sichuan, China, a researcher forms a bond with Qian Qian, a panda who is about to experience nature for the first time.

14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

In 2019, Nepalese mountain climber Nirmal “Nims” Purja set out to do the unthinkable by climbing the world’s fourteen highest summits in less than seven months. (The previous record was eight years). He called the effort “Project Possible 14/7” and saw it as a way to inspire others to strive for greater heights in any pursuit. The film follows his team as they seek to defy naysayers and push the limits of human endurance.