BIG CAT WEEK

The intimate story of the relationship between two filmmaker-explorers and a leopard they find when she is 8 days old. With the most sensitive methods they follow her as she matures, first in the company of her mother, then hunting on her own. Their resulting film, Eye of the Leopard, is the story of her coming of age. Now, Living With Big Cats tells us of the relationship that develops between the filmmakers and this leopard. Passionately told, it is a story of internal conflict, of testing boundaries, and of seduction the seduction of Dereck and Beverly Joubert our human characters, by Legadema the leopard.

Armed with an arsenal of weapons and strength to back up major attitude, only four wild cats make it into the big cat club: the lion, tiger, leopard and jaguar.

The story of one pride of lions and one herd of buffalo isolated on an island in Botswana's Okavango Delta. A beautiful film about the story of one pride of lions and one herd of buffalo isolated on an island in Botswana's Okavango Delta shows the extreme hunting of lions in water as they pick of the buffalo daily. It also tells the story of the embittered pride as they struggle with their own politics and race to survive during these relentless hunts.

At the edge of a waterhole, a lion cub plays amidst the feet of giants, several elephants tower over his head, shifting nervously, gently nudging their young to safety. This cub is one of the youngest generations of a large pride of lions that make their home at this permanent waterhole in Botswana. It is a lifeline for many animals -impala, kudu, zebra, wildebeest, but since the steady increase of elephants over the past twenty years things have started to change. And what may seem like a typical African scene, is in fact the setting for something quite extraordinary, something we have never seen before. The lions that have set up residence here have developed a special skill. They have learned how to hunt elephants. This is a predatory feat until now regarded as beyond the power of the lion. Visually spectacular, this remarkable film has been shot over a period of eight years. Filmed on 35mm film, it captures new, amazing behavior and presents a powerful story of primal instincts and survival in a harsh and unforgiving place.

One of nature's most extraordinary cats can still be found deep in the flooded marshlands of a place called Mombo, in Botswana's Okavango Delta. An ultimate predator, nearly silent, at times invisible, but when one can get close enough, always strikingly beautiful. Within this harsh environment, the leopard continues to flourish. One day, under the watchful eyes of two humans, emerged one particular cat with a birthmark that distinguishes her from all others – and they nicknamed her Legadema or “Light from the Sky.”

Award-winning filmmakers and National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert set out 30 years ago on a quest to get close to big cats. Big Cat Odyssey chronicles their meticulous work over three decades of filming, photographing and documenting the behaviour of big cat species in Botswana. They follow lions and leopards through Africa’s harshest climatic extremes, gaining unprecedented access and catching some of the most extreme cat sequences ever filmed. An entire lion pride battles a large buffalo to down the beast. A blood feud erupts when scavenging hyenas move in on the kill. Leopards creep from the bushes to hunt and retreat into the trees before falling prey to larger killers. Beyond the blood and gore lies a stark reality: Big cats kill to live and live to kill.