''Flight of the Butterflies'' is a 2012

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed and co-written by

Mike Slee Michael John Slee (born 23 August 1959) is a British film-maker, producer/director and writer. Life and career Born in Windlesham, Surrey, Slee studied Art & Design at Kingston University, and graduated with a first class honours degree from the ...

for 3D

IMAX IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating. Graeme F ...

, starring

Megan Follows Megan Elizabeth Laura Diana Follows (born March 14, 1968) is a Canadian-American actress and director. She is known for her role as Anne Shirley in the 1985 Canadian television miniseries ''Anne of Green Gables'' and its two sequels. From 2013 t ...

Gordon Pinsent Gordon Edward Pinsent (born July 12, 1930) is a Canadian actor, writer, director, and singer. He is known for his roles in numerous productions, including ''Away from Her'', ''The Rowdyman'', ''John and the Missus'', ''A Gift to Last'', '' Due So ...

, and

Shaun Benson Shaun Benson (born January 16, 1976) is a Canadian actor and director. Early life Benson was born in Guelph, Ontario. He is the son of Eugene Benson, an English professor and a prolific novelist, playwright and librettist."Just Cause for Benson: ...

. The film covers Dr. Fred Urquhart's nearly 40-year-long scientific investigation into the

monarch butterfly The monarch butterfly or simply monarch (''Danaus plexippus'') is a milkweed butterfly (subfamily Danainae) in the family Nymphalidae. Other common names, depending on region, include milkweed, common tiger, wanderer, and black-veined brown. It ...

(''Danaus plexippus''), tracking the details of what is considered one of the longest known insect migrations: the flight of the monarch butterfly from

Central Mexico Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

to the United States and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and back.

Synopsis

Monarch butterflies are a familiar sight in the United States and Canada most of the year, but disappear from most locations in winter. The documentary film weaves together factual information about the monarchs with a dramatic re-enactment of the search for the answer to the mystery of where they spend the winter. The story line follows Urquhart as a child in Canada, fascinated by the butterflies; his years of research and study, together with his wife and collaborator Norah, into their life and migration; and their recruitment of a pair of amateur naturalists in Mexico to search for and ultimately find the butterflies there, concluding with his time decades later as a senior scientist looking back at his investigations and discoveries about the insect's life pattern. In addition to finding the

overwintering Overwintering is the process by which some organisms pass through or wait out the winter season, or pass through that period of the year when "winter" conditions (cold or sub-zero temperatures, ice, snow, limited food supplies) make normal activi ...

sites, he discovered that it takes two or three generations for the monarch butterflies to reach the Canadian breeding grounds, while one much-longer-lived "supergeneration" makes the return trip south into central Mexico.

Cast

as Narrator *

as Dr Fred Urquhart *

as Ken Brugger * Patricia Phillips as Norah Urquhart *

Sofía Sisniega Sofía Sisniega (born 7 June 1989) is a Mexican actress, best known for her role as ''Sofia López-Haro'' in the 2013 Mexican adaptation, '' Gossip Girl: Acapulco''. Early life Sisniega was born in Cuernavaca, Mexico. She began acting in local c ...

as Chloe *

Stephanie Sigman Stephanie Sigman is a Mexican-American actress. Her breakthrough role was in the 2011 Mexican crime drama film '' Miss Bala''. She has gone on to appear in ''Pioneer'' (2013), ''Spectre'' (2015), ''Going Under'' (2016), and '' Annabelle: Creatio ...

as Catalina Aguado * Jayden Greig as Ice cream boy

Production

With Mike Slee announced as director, the film went into principal development in February 2007. In August 2007, the U.S.

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

awarded a three million dollar grant to Canadian SK Films to both develop the film for the giant screen and create its educational outreach program. The grant amount is the maximum available from the NSF. Filming took place through 2011 and 2012, and tracked the butterflies from their winter habitats in central Mexico to their breeding grounds in the southern United States to their summer habitat in Canada, and their subsequent return to Mexico. In filming the butterflies, director Slee considered using balloons, helicopters, and cables, but ultimately decided on use of a 70-foot crane. SK Films announced that principal filming of the one-year project was completed in early March 2012.

Release

The film had its world premiere on September 24, 2012, at the Smithsonian's

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, hosted by the

Federal government of Mexico The Federal government of Mexico (alternately known as the Government of the Republic or ' or ') is the national government of the Mexico, United Mexican States, the central government established by its constitution to share sovereignty over the ...

, through the Mexico Tourism Board and the Embassy of Mexico. An early version of the film was screened at the

Maryland Science Center The Maryland Science Center, located in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, opened to the public in 1976. It includes three levels of exhibits, a planetarium, and an observatory. It was one of the original structures that drove the revitalization of the ...

on March 31, 2012, and the completed IMAX version distributed and screened in early October 2012 at various 3D IMAX theaters such as the

Liberty Science Center Liberty Science Center is an interactive science museum and learning center located in Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States. At its opening it was the largest such planetarium in the Western Hemisphere and the world's ...

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark. Portions of the film's box office receipts went to fund butterfly conservation efforts.

Reception

The film has been favorably received by multiple sources. ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' compared the film to ''

March of the Penguins ''March of the Penguins'' (French ''La Marche de l'empereur'' ; ) is a 2005 French feature-length nature documentary directed and co-written by Luc Jacquet, and co-produced by Bonne Pioche and the National Geographic Society. The documentary dep ...

'', writing that as a non-commercial film, it "neatly balances entertainment and education" in a manner "bound to fascinate schoolchildren", and offered that its 3D IMAX visuals were phenomenal. ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' declared the film a "critic's pick", and in praising the film's 3D IMAX realism, noted the film wove together the life and studies of Dr. Fred Urquhart and the life cycle of the monarch butterfly from

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Sym ...

chrysalis A pupa ( la, pupa, "doll"; plural: ''pupae'') is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their ...

to adult insect, adding that it resulted in "an educational but equally engrossing bit of filmmaking" that was "armchair travel at its most engaging". They also favorably compared the film against ''March of the Penguins'' for its ability "to tug at heartstrings", and make the viewer feel personally invested in Urquhart's quest. ''

Ottawa Citizen The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. History Established as ''The Bytown Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris (journalist), William Harris, it was renamed the '' ...

'' wrote that Fred Urquhart's search of discovery into the life of the monarch butterfly was "a remarkable story" and capturing it made "a stunning documentary that fills the screen." ''

Slashfilm ''/Film'', also spelled ''Slashfilm'', is a blog that covers movie news, reviews, interviews, and trailers. It was founded by Peter Sciretta in August 2005. Podcasts Six podcasts have run on the site. ''The /Filmcast'', hosted by David Chen, De ...

'' offered that before major studios recognized the financial potential of IMAX big screens for releases of blockbuster productions, the "theaters primarily played nature and science documentaries". They welcomed the return of such to IMAX theaters through ''Flight of the Butterflies''. And in noting the film's imminent October release, and the number of blockbuster films now being offered in the big-screen 3D format, ''The Film Stage'' offered it as a net positive that IMAX theaters will "have a balance of blockbusters and nature films."

References

External links

* * * {{Rotten Tomatoes, flight_of_the_butterflies Documentary films about nature Canadian 3D films Canadian documentary films IMAX short films Documentary films about science Butterflies 2012 in science IMAX documentary films 3D short films 3D documentary films 2010s English-language films 2010s Canadian films