"The Last Lions", an English feature film directed by award-winning filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert from Botswana aims to highlight the plight of lions in the wild and the urgent need for their protection.
The 2010 film would be screened in the category of 'feature film' during the upcoming five-day CMS Vataavaran Environment and Wildlife Festival scheduled to begin here on January 30.
"Set in the lush wetlands of Botswana's Okavango Delta, 'The Last Lions' follows the epic journey of a lioness named Ma di Tau ("Mother of Lions") as she battles to protect her cubs against a daunting onslaught of enemies in order to ensure their survival", the film's directors told PTI over email.
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"We have spent some thirty years working with lions in the wild to fully understand them, theirs lives, and their emotions. We have also made it our life's mission to save this species. In fact, we established the Big Cats Initiative with the National Geographic Society specifically to save big cats", they said.
The directors, however knew they needed to urgently draw attention to the plight of lions as they think there has always been a perception that someone is taking care of the lions.
"Lions are the most iconic predator in the world. As such, the general perception is that Africa is full of lions. Once they started looking at the numbers as a research group, they started to find out how bad it really was. To see those numbers is traumatic," the email said.
The Earth has lost 90 to 95 per cent of its lions in a very short timeframe. This, pointed the directors has happened because of people, and it continues to happen to lions for the same reason.
"We have 7 billion people and 20,000 lions. We have to be extremely careful about the power we exert on the planet and its occupants."
The directors say, the film gave them an opportunity to bring this to people's attention in the hope that they could educate them and motivate change.
The film has also fund Jouberts' conservation work, "Big Cats Initiative".
