Special Mention for Unlikely Leopards

Dear Dereck, Beverly and Verity,

 

We are happy to inform you that your film “The Unlikely Leopard”

received a Special Mention from the International Jury at Sondrio

Festival 2013 – International Documentary Film Festival on Parks (XXVII

edition, Sondrio, Italy, 30 September – 6 October 2013):

 

“The jury feels compelled to make a special mention for the film The

Unlikely Leopard. This strong competitor used superior cinematography

and excellent narration to challenge the audience to question the

relationship between our appreciation of beauty and the realities of

exploitation. For demanding our attention to a serious conservation

dilemma, this work shows us the danger in loving the leopard to death.”

Then and Now: Jouberts

National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert have been filming and researching African wildlife since the 1980s. Recently, their research has focused on the steady decline of big cats across the globe, a trend that has been heavily affected by habitat loss and hunting. In an effort to pull the world’s wild cats from the brink of extinction, the filmmaking duo spearheaded the Big Cats Initiative. This National Geographic program is dedicated to the preservation of big cats—lions, tigers, jaguars, cheetahs, and more—through education, conservation projects, and a worldwide awareness campaign.

Moments like these were not always easy to capture, even when wildlife was relatively plenty. At the time of this 1982 expedition, the Jouberts’ Arriflex 35mm film cameras called for rationed shooting. “If I had a good day and had filmed three magazines and captured 15 minutes of action, I would have to shut down,” says Dereck Joubert of the now outdated technique. “I would open a black bag and in darkness unload each magazine, replace that exposed film with a fresh roll, remove the exposed roll, tape the ends, wrap that in a black plastic bag, and insert it into a can—all by feel in the darkness of a black bag in 100˚ heat, while the lions continued to hunt.” The process could take as long as ten minutes, and many priceless memories went un-photographed.

Photograph courtesy Wildlife Films

Beverly Joubert’s cameras could capture up to 36 images before requiring a film change. This process took as long as 60 seconds, which in the heat of action made the difference between an award-winning moment and a lost opportunity. When exposed, the Jouberts’ film rolls needed to be buried or refrigerated before they were shipped off to London for processing. Then they began a three-week wait for the results.

Modern high-definition cameras have paved the way for rapid shooting and instant review. Despite such modern conveniences, finding a power source in the middle of the wilderness can prove problematic. This, compounded with hours spent transferring footage to a stable hard drive, often counterbalances the benefits of modern cameras. “The end result is possibly marginally better today, but not 180 degrees divergent,” Dereck Joubert says.

Wildlife, however, has changed dramatically in the intervening years. While hunting has decreased as a management style and conservation efforts have blossomed, endangered animal populations continue to dwindle throughout Africa. In response to depleted wildlife, the Jouberts established the Big Cats Initiative, a program with 39 projects in 17 countries to date. This podium has come with a heavy responsibility. “We carry the burden of knowing the situation—one where we lose a rhino every nine hours, five lions a day, and five elephants an hour in Africa,” Dereck Joubert says.

Life Force Magazine, Front Cover

Beverly has had the honor of displaying one of her famous photos on the cover of Life Force Magazine.

Life Force magazine is a free, monthly, online, photo-led magazine which celebrates the art-form of the photo-essay. ( view the current issue )

Our photo-essays are about great photography and pushing the boundaries of the medium to explore conciousness and human perception, by harnessing the unique power that photography holds to capture a moment for analysis.


Beverly’s feature is utterly brilliant! We love it! The Front cover is one of my very favourite LFM covers ever (  DAMIAN BIRD – Life Force Magazine )

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Third Annual Big Cat Week

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Third Annual BIG CAT WEEK on Nat Geo WILD Begins Sunday Dec. 9th,  8 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT

Nat Geo WILD’s Most – Watched Week Returns with Five Nights of Premieres, Including First–Ever Capture and Release of an Endangered Snow Leopard in Afghanistan

Full schedule of BIG CAT WEEK:channel.nationalgeographic.com/wild/big-cat-week/series/big-cat-week/episode-guide/

Dereck and Beverly Joubert’s films to be featured:

  • “The Last Lions” on Monday Dec. 10th 8 p.m. ET and
  • “The Unlikely Leopard” on Thursday Dec. 13th 8 p.m. ET

 

“The Last Lions,” produced by award–winning filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert, captures the desperate plight of big cats — especially lions — in Africa. Filmed at Duba Plains, their home base in the Okavango Delta of Botswana, the Jouberts’ film is a call to action to save African lions. Fifty years ago, there were 450,000 lions across Africa and today as few as 20,000 remain in the wild.

The Jouberts followed lioness Ma di Tau (“Mother of Lions”) for seven years to create their 2011 documentary. Recently interviewed by Lara Logan for CBS “60 Minutes,” the Jouberts led the TV crew on an expedition to find Ma di Tau’s surviving cub. Watch the broadcast, also filmed on location at Duba Plains in Botswana, here:www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50135741n

“The Unlikely Leopard,” the Jouberts’ 2012 documentary, is a fun story about coming of age in the African wild. It is also a part of Nat Geo WILD’s Big Cats Initiative to “Cause an Uproar” to save big cats, which are in greater danger now than ever before. Fifty years ago leopards numbered 700,000. Today there may be as few as 50,000. These top predators are quickly disappearing. The loss of these majestic animals also means that the natural balance of entire environments is destroyed. “The Unlikely Leopard” was filmed near the famous Selinda Reserve in Botswana.

BIG CAT WEEK is an extension of the Big Cats Initiative (BCI), a long–term commitment founded by the Jouberts with the National Geographic Society to stop poaching, save habitats and sound the call that big steps are needed to save big cats around the world.

To address this critical situation, Nat Geo WILD is asking people to “Cause an Uproar” and support BCI. This year’s BIG CAT WEEK will follow a series of fall activities, including the creation of the National Geographic Big Cats Sister School Program, which pairs U.S. schools with schools in Kenya, Tanzania and Botswana under the shared theme of big cat conservation.

Follow Explorers–in–Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert on Twitter @dereckbeverly


The New York Times
“‘The Last Lions’ is a worthy, intensive labor of love that took years to shoot and edit, and it’s also more gripping than a lot of recent Hollywood thrillers.”

Los Angeles Times
“It goes without saying that their [filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert] latest effort, ‘The Last Lions,’ is mightily impressive to look at.”

The Washington Post
“The tale has all the trappings of a good Jack London novel, including fearsome villains, such as a scar–faced buffalo leading a pack of its one–ton brethren, as well as a one–eyed lioness, well–known for killing the cubs of her enemies.”

USA Today
Beverly Joubert: “Once people can get to know a leopard the way we do, the great individual character and personality, they’ll understand why it’s so important to protect these cats in Africa.”

Our Amazing Planet
“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.”

ABC News
Bill Weir of ABC Nightline visits the Jouberts in Botswana to see what has become of the star feline from “The Unlikely Leopard.”

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Married life in a tent. How do they do it?

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Could you spend 16 hours a day trapped in a vehicle with your husband? Road trips have left many a relationship in tatters, but for Beverly and Dereck Joubert — the wildlife photographers profiled this week on 60 Minutes — spending long days together in a truck and nights in a tent is just part of the fun.

“We designed our lives so that we could be together,” says Dereck. “We never wanted the life where I would go off to the office and come back late at night, cranky, have a scotch, and spend an hour or two with Beverly, who had a completely different life.”

So, these high school sweethearts moved to Botswana and began making their dramatic wildlife films together. Beverly and Dereck work in isolation, going months without seeing other humans; and they told Lara Logan that four days is the longest they’ve spent apart in years. And they’re still married!

Watch the video here

Snake Bite! A 60 Minutes shoot in Botswana

This week, 60 Minutes went to Africa to meet world-famous wildlife photographers Beverly and Dereck Joubert. We figured the couple lived an adventurous life in the wilds of Botswana, but we didn’t expect what we found on the first day of the shoot.

When Lara Logan stepped off the plane and reached out to shake Dereck’s hand, it was red, swollen, and “slushy” from a snake bite.

“It’s like having your hand in hot coals,” he told Logan.

“If it’s a black mamba, then you’ve got 10 minutes. So, we’ve made the 10 minutes,” he added nonchalantly.

Over decades living in the African bush, the Jouberts have made it through scorpion bites, several bouts of malaria, two plane crashes, daily encounters with deadly lions — and of course, snake bites.

“Anything could go wrong at any moment,” Dereck says. “It’s probably best for us not to plan for old age.”

Watch the video here

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Discovering the Secrets of Lions

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Dereck and Beverly Joubert have spent more time filming and living among lions in the wild than anyone alive today. The discoveries they’ve made over 30 years of wildlife filmmaking have challenged conventional wisdom about Africa’s big cats.

They’ve made more than 20 films for National Geographic, where they are “Explorers in Residence.”

They live in Botswana in the heart of southern Africa, a country about the size of Texas.

The Jouberts often go long stretches without seeing another human being, but they made an exception for us, and allowed us to join them in a wild place they call home…

Click here to read the full article

OR

Click here to watch the interview

Lessons of the Hunt

A mother leopard can teach her cub many things about surviving in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. But some skills a cub must pick up on her own – often through life-threatening experiences.

She was eight days old when we spotted her.Her eyes were still milky gray, and she wobbled slightly. Emerging into the sunlight from her den, she seemed curious and bold, taking no notice of screeching squirrels.Her mother had lost five previous cubs to hyenas, baboons, and other predators.What would happen to this one?

Unlike lions or cheetahs, leopards are secretive, solitary cats.Without a family to depend on, they hunt alone, slinking through the shadows, surviving on stealth and intelligence. Finding any leopard is difficult, so when we discovered this mother and cub in the thick groves of ebony and acacia trees at Mombo, an area in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, we decided to follow the little one as she grew up.

From her first days, Legadema, as we came to call her (“light from the sky” in the Setswana language), was under constant threat. Whether it was a troop of baboons that tried to drag both mother and daughter out of their den, or the lurking hyenas, death was never far away. Lions, a significant threat to young leopards, thrive in this part of the Moremi Game Reserve. But none of this kept Legadema from exploring the forest on her own when her mother left her alone for days at a time to bring back meat.Wherever Legadema went, vervet monkeys with darting eyes spotted her a mile off, and squirrels set up alarm calls. In time, these incidents only made her better at concealment and stealth.

Her mother, a patient teacher, instructed Legadema in the skills she would need to survive as a predator: how to pin down prey and where to clamp on their throats with her jaws to suffocate them. Only after mastering these and many other lessons would she grow into the solitary hunter that all leopards must one day become.

Text and Images by Beverly Joubert

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