Natural History

natural history began about five years ago when the director of the Museum of Natural History Vienna, Christian Koeberl, invited me to lunch. He wanted to talk about his second passion film. Myself not liking film that much immediately changed the subject to meteorites, his first passion. Over a schnitzel and the better part of a rather good bottle of red wine I received about two years of university credit on the subject. Then with a boyhood grin, Christian asked if I’d like to see the storage rooms. (...) We spent another few hours looking at the stuff stored and at the underground architecture itself. I told Christian I think I’d like to make a film there, a landscape film, and without hesitation he said yes. (James Benning)

In presence of James Benning and Christian Köberl (Museum of Natural History Vienna).