On “International Day of Biosphere Reserves,” the Biosphere Reserve Schaalsee-Elbe will present the award-winning film “Saving Spoonie” on the big screen to conclude the three-part film series “Biosphere Cinema” —which won Best Film in the “People and Nature” category at the 2026 German Nature Film Awards. As a special event for the German Nature Film Awards at the Boizenburg Cinema, admission is free at 7:00 p.m.!
A small bird. A big story: Only a few hundred spoon-billed sandpipers (Calidris pygmaea)—affectionately called “Spoonies” because of their distinctive spoon-shaped beaks—remain on Earth. As if that weren’t alarming enough, its migration route runs from Russia through North Korea and China to Myanmar—and thus through several crisis-stricken regions of the past decade. An international group of biologists, ornithologists, and conservationists is doing everything in its power to save this nearly extinct wading bird. And so, this moving story about Spoonie’s fate reflects the struggle to preserve threatened biodiversity in a world that has become increasingly fragile.
In the film discussion that follows, director Till Harms will offer insights into the film’s development and production. He speaks with Anke Hollerbach, director of the Biosphere Reserve Schaalsee-Elbe, about the challenges of bird migration as well as the importance of biosphere reserves and other protected areas along the migration routes.
