Naturalist David Attenborough’s centennial celebrated at Artis

Amsterdam’s Artis zoo marked the 100^th birthday of natural historian and conservationist David Attenborough Friday with the premiere of his new documentary, Our Story. 

The 50-minute immersive film screened in the zoo’s planetarium gives a 360-degree snapshot of the earth’s four-billion-year history and humans’ more recent, and destructive, appearance on the planet. It ends in a call to write and reshape the next chapter of our collective story.

“We are now at a crossroads,” said Artis director Rembrandt Sutorius, echoing Attenborough’s closing monologue. “You are alive at a period when you are most significant, and we can turn the tide. It’s about making choices. For me, that’s the most important message of this story.”

For Sutorius, the choice of Artis as the first venue outside of London to screen the documentary makes perfect sense both personally and professionally. “I’m only 44-years-old, not 100, and I’ve probably seen Attenborough’s whole work in my lifetime,” he said of being inspired by the centenarian’s films.

“And what Artis has done in its 188 years of existence is basically similar storytelling to what David Attenborough has done. We have taught stories about nature, and that led to the first nature conservation movement in the Netherlands, because starting to understand nature is really starting to love nature and then making people care. It’s what we do every day: tell these stories about water, about biodiversity and about food.”

Our Story executive producer and co-director Jonnie Hughes, co-founder of the film’s production company Open Planet Studios, agrees that the relationship between Attenborough and Artis is symbiotic.

“You experience this film in an amazing dome that tells you all about how important nature is, not just nice to have, but absolutely fundamental to everything we need from life,” he said. “And then you can wander straight out of that into the zoo and be surrounded by all these creatures and plants, and I think it will make you reflect on them in a different way. So it’s a fantastic connection. It’s perfect.”

Artis through the ages

For almost two centuries, Artis has been bringing nature, science and education together, highlighting the interconnectedness of life where humankind and the planet are inseparably intertwined. Both the film and the zoo also tell the story of impact and responsibility and the possibility of living with the planet instead of against it. Our Story is indeed everyone’s story.

Artis has brought the scimitar-horned oryx back from the brink of extinction, reintroducing that desert antelope back into the wild.

“But for me, bringing animals back from extinction, or almost extinction, isn’t the primary reason that we’re here, because it’s basically mopping the floor while the tap is still open,” said Sutorius. “It’s more about education. Every year, we have 1.3 million visitors…If we can change their behaviour, we have much more impact.”

That’s why, he said, Artis became a vegetarian venue in 2019. “If we, as an institution, want to address extinction, then it cannot be the case that we are part of the problem and then also trying to solve it…The food system is the biggest threat to biodiversity. We need to change the system, and if we can inspire other organizations and consumers to eat differently, we make more impact than just bringing back some animals from extinction.”

Doomed or not?

Before the screening, viewers took a poll that included answering the question of whether we humans are doomed or if there is still time for a climate course correction. The planet, Attenborough tells us, will survive with or without us, as it has always found a way forward after mass extinctions. Audience members were almost evenly divided.

Still, the movie ends on a hopeful note. Attenborough uses the story of how humans have resuscitated once-dwindling whale populations as an example of how we can effect change for good.

And if the movie at times feels underwhelming, its call-to-action message is nonetheless powerful, especially to the young: now is the most exciting time in history to be alive, Attenborough tells the audience. “Humans are the greatest problem solvers. It’s our superpower.”

“Seize the moment,” he said. “It won’t come up again.”

Our Story will be screening at Artis until the end of the year.