Flight of the Butterflies, a breathtaking giant screen adventure from SK Films, is coming back to the 4-story Giant Screen Theater at Atlanta’s Fernbank Museum of Natural History—this time in 3D—by popular demand, scheduled to show daily from Friday, Nov. 2 through Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019.
Based on a remarkable true story, the epic film immerses audiences in a triumphant journey of perseverance that spans thousands of miles and several generations — tracking real monarch butterflies to their mysterious Mexican winter haven where audiences will discover a truly spectacular sight: hundreds of millions of REAL live butterflies in one of the most amazing places on Earth!
The film is the awe-inspiring story of two unlikely heroes that share a common strength. Based on true events, it follows the epic journey of the iconic monarch butterfly in one of the most incredible migrations on Earth, and the determined scientist, Dr. Fred Urquhart, who spent 40 years trying to discover the mysteries surrounding their journey and secret winter hideaway.
What began with a small boy daydreaming about where butterflies went each winter became a lifelong pursuit by Urquhart, who ingeniously enlisted the help of legions of volunteers, known as “citizen scientists,” to help with tagging and tracking the butterflies. The decades-long quest yielded the ultimate discovery of the monarch butterflies’ overwintering sites in the sanctuaries of Mexico.
Through spectacular Giant Screen technology, audiences are transported into the tiny world of one intrepid creature – Dana (Danaus Plexippus) – and her offspring as they migrate north from Mexico through the U.S. to Canada and back south again to the captivating hidden butterfly sanctuaries set 10,000 feet high in the mountains of the States of Michoacán and Mexico.
The iconic monarch butterfly is a true marvel of nature. Weighing less than a penny, it makes one of the longest migrations on Earth across a continent, yet with pinpoint navigational accuracy, to a place it has never been. While much has been learned, scientists are still unraveling the many inter-related aspects of this phenomenon of the natural world. As the film illustrates, it takes two to three generations of butterflies to migrate north from Mexico through the U.S. to Canada and one “super generation” to complete the migration back south to Mexico.