The Magicicada is a sneaky insect that plagues North America once every seventeen years by crawling out of the ground by the millions. The insect is from the same family as the hemiptera, which includes plant lice– not exactly our favorite houseguests and reason enough not to give them much thought. However, American filmmaker Samuel Orr has made that impossible. For the past seven years he’s worked on an inspiringly beautiful film over the Magicicada.
Many years ago during his thesis research into woodland ecology, Orr first became interested in making nature films. The maligned Cicada became a fascination. Orr was in the Netherlands last week for the PINC festival. There he told us how he spent days, weeks and months filming locations where the Cicadas emerge from the ground to document their development process as true to life as possible. ‘You need to be a little bit crazy,’ he admitted. ‘Who goes and sits in a tree for hours to film how a bug crawls out of the ground? Me, obviously.’
And you have to admit, Magicicada are fascinating; they live underground for seventeen years, surviving off plant roots. And then, suddenly, according to the rhythm of some mysterious biological clock, they climb up to the surface, shedding their larva skins. By the millions they climb out of the ground and then up into the trees to metamorphose and procreate. Once that’s done their purpose on earth is completed and they die. Take a look at the trailer for Orr’s film:

Samuel Orr finances his film projects through crowd funding, and at this time is trying to raise enough money to film Cicadas in New Zealand, Costa Rica and Japan.
For more information: returnofthecicadas.com | The music for the film was composed by Dexter Britain.