A documentary for the ORF series “Universum” about the Red Sea TRAILER VIDEO took a camera team from Cosmos Factory to the Yemeni island of Socotra – the “Galapagos of the Indian Ocean” – for three weeks.
Director Harald Pokieser is enthusiastic: “I have been travelling the world for thirty years, but I have never seen such a strange, exotic world.”
Not only are there hundreds of endemic animal species here, but also plants that are reminiscent of extraterrestrial worlds, most notably the Dragon’s Blood Tree, the symbol of Socotra, and the bottle-shaped Desert Roses that can grow up to five meters tall.
The only chameleon (Chamaeleo monachus), an endemic species, is easy to find and film, provided you spend a day driving over miserable roads into the mountains, know local people, find the right habitat and have plenty of time.
The Dragon Blood Tree’s Gecko (Hemidactylus dracaenacolus) is even more difficult as it is nocturnal and shy.
Pokieser: “Without flashlights and the eagle eyes of a young shepherd, we wouldn’t have made it.”
The team: left Samir, right Christian Stolz, behind Valentin Blüml