When a giant blue whale washes up on a beach in California, people begin to flock from all over to take in the sight. As they pose for photos beside the enormous carcass, and question the creature’s origins, the filmmaker Tijana Petrović watches them watching. Her short documentary Back to Land meditates on our fascination with the spectacle of nature, and observes the limitations of human knowledge against the breadth of our curiosity.
The beached carcass of a blue whale is a terrible, wondrous sight
Director: Tijana Petrović
9 May 2014

videoHistory of science
The sprawling, stinking marvels of a natural history museum’s specimens
7 minutes

videoEcology and environmental sciences
A whale can live 50-75 years. Its afterlife is equally long and spectacular
4 minutes

videoAnimals and humans
Are zoos and natural history museums born of a desire to understand, or to control?
57 minutes

videoEarth science and climate
A biologist on the sorrows of documenting the Great Salt Lake’s collapse
6 minutes

videoEcology and environmental sciences
What is it like to make eye contact with a dying whale?
2 minutes

videoEcology and environmental sciences
The tree frog die-off that sparked a global mystery – and revealed a dark truth
15 minutes


