“The Last Lions” wins Music Award at the Wildscreen Festival

Bristol, UK — It has been a busy few weeks for conservationists and filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert. Yesterday, the couple’s 2011 feature film “The Last Lions,” produced in association with National Geographic, won the Wildscreen Golden Panda Award for Music. The wildlife television and film competition includes over 550 delegates from 40 countries.

After the awards ceremony, Dereck Joubert shared his thoughts: “Working with Alex Wurman [conductor] and J.B. Arthur [vocal arrangements] on this film was a pleasure. We were able to mold a score with them that was emotive and culturally appropriate, but one that carefully worked in unison with Jeremy Iron’s voice and the images. Sometimes it all comes together, and the Wildscreen judges said just that last night.”

While the Jouberts have won almost every major film making award during their careers, it is the message their films convey to global audiences that fuels their boundless energy and mission of wildlife conservation. “To bring a film to the big screen and show Botswana and its cats in this light is a privilege,” said Dereck Joubert. “It gives us a bigger platform to discuss the plight of big cats and to talk about the Big Cats Initiative, which we launched with National Geographic to help stop the decline of big cats in the wild.” Help “Cause an Uproar” to save big cats by visiting causeanuproar.org

The Jouberts’ commitment to conservation also led them to create Great Plains Conservation, which generates much needed revenue for local communities, helps them care for their natural and wildlife resources and protects large swaths of land for Africa’s dwindling wildlife populations.

Great Plains Conservation is a conservation company that uses tourism as a major component to help make conservation financially viable through what we call “Conservation Tourism.” Our projects in Botswana and Kenya are rooted in this passion to make the environment whole again. It focuses on providing a meaningful experience, something special for people but by doing so with a strong commitment to the lowest impact, high value, and safari experiences. Ensuring that areas in which we operate are environmentally sustainable and financially working enterprises for conservation and for communities is what we consider responsible tourism and business. Great Plains Conservation is continually recognized by leading travel publications and organizations for its role in creating the ultimate in responsible tourism areas which not only incorporate local land owners and communities but provide havens for Africa wildlife and the ultimate in guest experience. We are the recipients of the World Responsible Tourism Award and our camps continually feature in leading publications such as Condé Nast, Travel + Leisure, National Geographic Traveler and the annual Good Safari Guide Awards.

New Nat Geo Film Spots Leopards’ Lighter Side

Ah, leopards — majestic creatures. Fearsome hunters, the dappled cats glide across Africa’s Serengeti like ghosts, able to melt away into the landscape, day or night, and rain terror upon unsuspecting prey.

All that would be news to the star of a new film premiering soon on Nat Geo WILD, “The Unlikely Leopard.” The documentary tracks the first years of a clumsy, awkward, mama’s-boy of a leopard who seems a bit ill-suited for the lofty mantle often reserved for these big cats.

The film is the latest from Dereck and Beverly Joubert, seasoned filmmakers who have dedicated their lives to documenting the dramatic stories of Africa’s lions and other big cats — and their increasingly dire circumstances, which have sent their numbers plummeting in recent decades. It can get a bit depressing, they said, to compare the crowds of lions and other cats they regularly saw 30 years ago, to the far more paltry numbers they see today.

Unexpected comedy

Enter “The Unlikely Leopard,” a film that introduces its star when he is a tiny, 10-day-old, thoroughly irresistible cat. The film is certainly a departure for the duo, the husband-and-wife team said. There was a lot more laughter than usual.

“There were moments that we would crack up over and over just watching him fall out of a tree or play with something he shouldn’t play with,” Beverly told OurAmazingPlanet. “He seemed to not quite want to do what normal leopards do.”

The Jouberts said they had no idea the little leopard would prove to offer such comic relief. “We just happened to find a young leopard, and I think that he told us his story,” Dereck said.

Beautifully shot, impeccably edited and skillfully written, actor Jeremy Irons’ narration — which is delivered with both gravitas and understated British humor — adds a final bit of sparkle to an already arresting film.

Life among the cats

The Jouberts, South African natives who have lived out of a tent on an island in Botswana for nearly three decades, said that despite the laughter the leopard’s antics provoked, filming the growing cat and his watchful mother was an enormous challenge. Unlike lions, which make their presence known and are very social creatures, leopards are far more solitary, and tend to stay on the move, blending seamlessly into their surroundings.

“So we had a rule,” Dereck said. “One of us had to be watching the cat at all times. If I had to change a lens, Beverly had to watch the cat. With leopards, if they even just roll over, they can disappear.”

In fact, leopards are indeed disappearing, suffering steep declines in many parts of Africa, due to human-cat conflict and a thriving black market for their unmistakable spotted fur, coveted for both its beauty and as a symbol of power. The big cats are nearly extinct in north Africa, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, an independent body that assesses the status of species around the world.

Yet in spite of the serious underlying issues, Beverly said, “making this film and spending time with this leopard was a wonderful chance to be joyful.”

The Jouberts said they hope that their film not only provokes some laughter, but provokes thought and — perhaps most important — further action to protect leopards.

“The Unlikely Leopard” premieres Sunday, July 15, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Nat Geo WILD.

Andrea Mustain, Our Amazing Planet

The Unlikely Leopard

This is the coming-of-age story about Dikeledi, a somewhat clumsy male leopard struggling to get the hang of, well, being a leopard. The special by award-winning filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert follows c as he grows into his oversized paws and eventually moves away from his mother, his provider and protector. See every frustrating failed stalking until he eventually gets it right and witness his personality and confidence grow as he becomes a stealthy and effective hunting machine.

The Unlikely Leopard will be released on National Geographic Wild Channel on the 15th July in the USA at 9pm.

“Wild Supreme” at 340 Madison Avenue, New York City

The “Wild Supreme” exhibit at 340 Madison Avenue, New York City is of 8 large photographs of African wildlife taken by Beverly Joubert. The permanent exhibit is arranged by RXR Realty, the sustainable conservationists who are presenting their collection of these stunning large-size photographs printed on canvas. Dereck and Beverly Joubert are award winning filmmakers and conservationists. The winners of six Emmys for their wildlife films.

The photographic exhibit opened on June 6th, 2012, in the limestone lobby of the RXR office building at 44th Street in Manhattan. The Jouberts travelled from Botswana for the event and spoke of their work saving the big cats of Africa to the assembled crowd. Explaining that the lions, leopard and cheetah that they have filmed and photographed on Duba Plains, Selinda and Zarafa on the Selinda Reserve in Botswana, and ol Donyo Lodge and Mara Plains in Kenya are now in danger of becoming extinct.

“The Big Cats Initiative founded by us with the National Geographic is a plea for your help to save the wild cats from extinction. Trophy hunters are killing over 600 male lions a year” the Jouberts explained to a shocked audience.  “The images shown here today are all made on select game reserves in Africa, owned and managed by Great Plains Conservation, a safari company established to increase and protect wild places. Great Plains Conservation is a Joubert and partners initiative that protects 1.5 million acres of land by working with communities and governments to establish corridors, save lions and other big cats and enrich biospheres in both Botswana and Kenya.”

The opening night, June 6th, was an exciting event, with a New York crowd attending the cocktail reception hosted by RXR. Eight large images by Beverly Joubert, each over 6 feet square on stretched canvas, were hung in the lobby. “Wild Supreme” a large photograph of a Duba lion, set the color tone for the orange and yellow images of wildlife in the permanent exhibit. The silent auction that night raised money for the Big Cats Initiative bigcatsinitiative.org

Africa was in the heart of Manhattan that night, where the Jouberts plea for help to save the big cats caused an uproar around the city. The Jouberts film “The Unlikely Leopard” will be shown on Nat Geo WILD TV on July 15th in the USA.

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MYOO Earth Awards

At MYOO, we believe 2012 is the year where social and environmental good can be part of every person’s life. A grand dream? Perhaps. But one more easily executed with inspiration, guidance, and trailblazing by our 2012 Earth Day Honorees: 10 human beings whose daily lives are startling examples of accomplishment with purpose. From rubbing elbows with the world’s biggest cats to building the world’s most ecologically sound buildings, these folks prove that there are limitless paths to safeguarding the earth.

Beverly Joubert
Who is Beverly Joubert? Guardian angel of Botswana’s wild lands, explorer in residence for National Geographic, and filmmaker-photographer with an eye for capturing the unbridled beauty of big cats,  Beverly Joubert and her husband Dereck lead conservation efforts in the African bush. It’s a process of patient research, keen observation, and brazen exploration of large predatory mammals and their essential impact on all life around them, including human life. Peabody Awards, 5 Emmys, and a slew of other honors barely begin to describe the vivacity and dedication to the wild with which Beverly creates her films. The filmmaking explorer is, perhaps above all, creative and open-minded: rather than a misanthrope, she produces her photographs and film with the hope that viewers will care, connect with her film, and become alive because of it. To witness the heights and dynamic dimensions of her films is arresting; to witness her life is very much the same.

Tooth-and-Claw Life of a Dedicated Single Mother

One of the most urgent and certainly among the most beautifully shot documentaries to hit the big screen in recent memory, “The Last Lions” isn’t just another cute and fuzzy encounter session with a different species. It’s a pulse-quickening, tear-duct milking and outrageously dramatized story about the threats — wildfires, chomping teeth, stampeding hooves and, worst of all, unseen humans — that face a female lion trying to protect her cubs. Here, single motherhood doesn’t mean juggling family, work and PTA meetings: it means parking the tots in the bushes and then trying to take down a water buffalo the size of a jeep.

To read the full article, click here

 

Lions & Leopards, The Work of Dereck and Beverly Joubert

National Geographic Explorers Dereck and Beverly Joubert have spent over two decades documenting the lives of lions and leopards. Living in a tent or out of a survey vehicle, they spend months at a time in the field following and observing these top predators. Stunning footage and intimate fine art prints offer a compelling and poetic case for stewardship of these threatened species.

Wall Street Journal review of “The Last Lions”

It is to a mother lioness, and the team of Dereck and Beverly Joubert, who wrote, produced and photographed her life and triumphs in all their cruelty and wonder, that we owe a genuinely astonishing film. Astonishing for its drama, its suspense—and not least its capacity to elicit a sense of joy in viewers, a reaction not commonly induced by wildlife films involving threatened species.

That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of darkness, violence and cruel loss in “The Last Lions” which follows the lioness known as Ma di Tau—Mother of Lions—as she strives to find a safe place for herself and her three cubs in Botswana’s wetlands, a place thick with enemies. Alone, her mate having been killed, she escapes a rival pride led by an enemy lioness by conquering the lions’ hatred of water. Ma di Tau dares to swim, and lands with her cubs on an isolated island. Here, the lone adult lion, she has to contend with the threat of a large herd of aggressive wild buffalos equipped with killer horns, their devastating weapons. Desperation drives her to launch a surprise attack on the entire terrifying herd. This calculation is rewarded with stunning success—one of the film’s memorable sights. And they’re numerous.

She’ll face other dangers: The rival pride led by the enemy lioness, a cub-killer called Silver Eye, appears, having taken Ma di Tau’s cue and braved the river. In this struggle, too, largely about strategy, Ma di Tau prevails, mainly by her displays of bold authority.

 

This chronicle of survival and triumph—Ma di Tau’s engagements with enemies are executed with military precision—unfolds in glorious color to the accompaniment of a narrative by Jeremy Irons so absurdly lush and so right you’ll want to hear it again. As you’ll want to see this mother reunited again with the cub she thought lost to her, and to watch her plot her strategies and win again against all the odds.