Catherine Chalmers

Mini-gladiators locked in an epic battle.

One of the principal characteristics humans and ants share is their social nature, and at the heart of any social species is communication. Ants constantly converse with one another using pheromones, vibrations, and touch. What would they say if they could speak to us?

Leafcutters is a unique collaboration with millions of wild ants. Focusing on four supposedly unique human traits – language, ritual, war and art – the narrative aims to blur the boundaries between culture and nature.

This wordless, hallucinatory nature documentary is not precisely natural, nor exactly a documentary. Following the travails of a cockroach through a studio-constructed tropical paradise, its extreme close-ups present a world in which bizarre plants and animals engage in a constant dance of eat and be eaten.