The Messenger

The Messenger

The Messenger is a haunting and visually striking documentary that explores the mysterious decline of songbirds around the world and what their disappearance reveals about the health of our planet. Directed by Su Rynard, the film blends science, poetry, and urgent environmental storytelling to create a powerful meditation on humanity’s connection to nature.

Through breathtaking cinematography and deeply personal accounts from scientists, activists, and bird lovers, The Messenger travels from forests and cities to remote migration routes across continents, tracing the peril faced by species that once filled the skies with sound. As it examines the complex web of causes—climate change, habitat loss, pollution, and light disorientation—the film transforms its ecological warning into something intimate and spiritual.

Rather than focusing solely on despair, Rynard’s approach evokes wonder and reverence, inviting audiences to rediscover the beauty of birds and the fragility of the systems that sustain them. With an evocative score and elegant pacing, The Messenger becomes both a call to action and a cinematic elegy—reminding us that the fate of songbirds mirrors our own.

Winner of the Best Conservation Program Award at the 2016 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, The Messenger resonates as a lyrical and urgent wake-up call—an ode to resilience, interconnectedness, and the enduring need to listen to the natural world before it goes silent.

Producer Q&A with Joanne Jackson

Joanne Jackson is an award-winning documentary and television producer and the driving force behind many compelling, thought provoking programs over the last 20 years. Her background includes hundreds of hours of television programming. She has also worked as an in-house producer and as a production executive. In the latter role, she supervised many series and specials at YTV, WTN and CTV/Discovery-owned channels Animal Planet Canada, travel+escape and Discovery HD. In Spring/Summer 2011, she was the Supervising Producer for Hero Dogs of 9/11, a one-hour documentary that was broadcast on Animal Planet Canada for the 10th Anniversary of the Ground Zero tragedy and the second highest rated program on the channel for the year. Her independent documentaries include The Big Wait, (2010) a poignant documentary about the doctor shortage in Canada and Long Haul Big Hearts (2007), the story of a long haul truck driver and his rescue mission to deliver relief supplies to Hurricane Katrina victims.

See the full photo gallery HERE

Screening With:

Kubo’s Crickets

Canadian Shorts Showcase

Obsessive visionary/inventor Kubo Dzamba believes he’s found a way to save humanity from a cataclysmic world famine that many scientists say will cripple humanity by 2050. His solution? Farming crickets for food. With the loving support of his offbeat family, Kubo is forced to navigate a minefield of challenges that include malfunctioning equipment, lack of money – and a world not ready to gobble up bugs.

16 mins
Canada, 2016
Dir. Michael Allcock
Language: English