‘Super Nature’ review: Impactful Super 8 natural world doc exec-produced by Asif Kapadia

Dir: Ed Sayers. UK. 2025. 82mins

We have become used to seeing the natural world on screen in all its high-definition glory, the latest filmmaking technology enabling crisp, close-up detail at macro and micro level. With Super Nature, however, debut feature filmmaker Ed Sayers takes a different approach, stitching together a patchwork of short vignettes from around the world all shot on vintage Super 8 cameras. The result is surprisingly immersive, the format and subject working in harmony to create a global overview of the natural world, and our place within it.

The Super 8 format itself lends a tactile, nostalgic feel 

Bowing in London’s documentary competition, Super Nature is executive produced by Oscar-winning filmmaker Asif Kapadia (Amy, Senna) – whose interest in environmental issues fuelled his own 2024 sci-fi documentary hybrid 2073. That should certainly help draw attention to this film, which should find an appreciative audience likely via a streamer or broadcaster. It could also be utilised as an effective tool for education and advocacy.

Sayers is a long-time lover of the Super 8 format and established the Super 8 filmmaking competition Straight 8 in 1999. When one of the entrants, Frenchman Roger Batteault, submitted a short film of flamingos in flight, this inspired Sayers to go out with his own Super 8 camera and film seals on the Norfolk Coast. From that moment, in early 2020, evolved the idea for Super Nature, in which over 40 worldwide contributors – including many from the Straight 8 community together with conservationists, biologists and activists – were supplied with two Super 8 cameras each and asked to film the natural world around them.

These two-to-three minutes clips come from 25 countries and feature a veritable menagerie of animals: there are desert quail in the USA; whales in Argentina; puffins in Whales; reindeer in Norway; monkeys in India; kangaroos in Australia. There are also a vast range of landscapes, from the mountains of Valle d’Aosta, Italy to the rivers of Scotland’s Isle of Lewis and the Storm Alex (2020) ravaged coastline of Le Var, France.

Working as editor, Sayers has done a terrific job of stitching together this seemingly disparate footage into a cohesive whole. There is no obvious throughline as such – although Sayers does insert his own voiceover throughout as he reacts to the videos and presents his own footage – but links and connections soon begin to emerge. Urban centres like Delhi and Bangkok play host to a surprising variety of wildlife. Underwater reefs in Tasmania and Granada – where an underwater statue park has been erected to regenerate the coral – are teeming with aquatic life.

With each contributor also providing snippets of narration, shared passions and concerns also come to the fore. There’s an overwhelming love of the natural world, of course, and a worry about environmental change. In Kenya, park ranger Zacharia discusses the responsibility of looking after the last two remaining northern white rhinos, both female, and of efforts to bring the species back from the brink. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 2000km from land, Valentina films from aboard a boat which drags huge netfuls of human waste – shoes, electronics, plastic bottles – from the sea. “It’s terrifying to think about the mark we’re making on our planet,” she says.”

The film is, however, shot through with a great deal of hope. In Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Fanta works tirelessly at a turtle sanctuary; in the USA’s Mojave Desert, Dani devotes her life to protecting snakes. The Super 8 format itself lends a tactile, nostalgic feel that proves warm and immediate, removing barriers between viewer and subject. And with Super 8 being a silent format, the footage is augmented by David McAulay’s textured sound design and a sensitive, uplifting soundtrack from Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres, which emphasises the beauty of these natural subjects, and the essential connection between them and us.