Coming in spring 2024, this blue-chip 4k Wildlife & Nature documentary is now available for presales!

We invite you to have an exclusive first look at the brand-new trailer of our upcoming ORF UNIVERSUM highlight “Nicobar Islands – A Monkey’s Long Tale” (UHD, 52 min.) directed by Varun Alagar Surendran.

The documentary takes us to the Nicobar archipelago - one of the last remaining windows into the primeval past of tropical islands located in the eastern Indian Ocean. Highly restricted to everybody due to its indigenous background, this tropical paradise - rimmed by white beaches and coral gardens - captivates the viewer with mangrove and evergreen forests, bustling with a stunning diversity of wildlife, much of it endemic and unique.

Meet the Nicobar long-tailed macaques that will guide you through the narrative.

The largest of the isles, Great Nicobar, marks India’s southernmost point despite lying 1,800 kilometers east of mainland India across the Bay of Bengal. It is located northwest of Sumatra and separated to the East from Thailand’s and Myanmar’s narrow peninsula by the Andaman Sea. Most of the Nicobars are uninhabited by humans, barred to visitors and protected as an UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. While this tiny insular realm is still a mystery to most, the wider region is remembered across the world by the 2004 Sumatra Andaman submarine earthquake - the third largest quake recorded globally, which set off a massive series of tsunamis, battered coastal areas of western Indonesia and spread out across the Indian Ocean. Lying closest to the earthquake's epicentre, freak waves severely damaged the coastal habitats of the Nicobar Islands.

2024 marks 20 years of this tragic event. 

The ORF UNIVERSUM documentary offers an exclusive access to a highly protected area and embodies a fascination for the resilience and diversity of tropical nature and a deepened understanding of a reflourished life in one of the last near-pristine corners of our planet.

Director Varun Alagar Surendran is an experienced wildlife cameraman and filmmaker and has been working for BBC, National Geographic, Animal Planet and Discovery Channel. He is an animal behavioral specialist and has presented some spectacular sequences in the natural world. Surendran won much acclaim for his work for BBC’s series "Primates".

The film is a co-production by ORF, ARTE, NDR doclights and pre TV, in association with ORF-Enterprise.

Join us on a journey through nature's remarkable recovery and check out the latest trailer HERE.

Register today on our easy-to-use platform contentsales.ORF.at and start screening.

With best regards,

Oliver Böhm

Managing Director ORF-Enterprise

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