"Every event that plays out before you is a natural wild event." "No special effects, no tame animals being wheeled in, wheeled out, nothing." "This is the real thing, and yet it follows a compelling story, an entirely absorbing tale of both the lion dynasty and the cheetah family in parallel" "that every single human on earth can empathize with and identify with." "And I think, in a way, if you watch this movie and you don't, after a little while, see lions and cheetahs, you see mothers and sons and great warriors, it will have worked." "I believe it will." "That's what we see when we're out here." "We're, of course, looking at lions and cheetahs, but we're looking at individuals and characters that we've known for years, grown to understand, grown to love, in a way." "And when they have a battle, our emotions are with them." "When they get a meal, we are sympathizing and empathizing with them." "And I hope that the audience will do precisely that." "I hope that the characters in this film will be every bit as close to the audience as any they've ever witnessed in any feature film that includes human beings, which happen to be the animal in most feature films." "These just happen to be lions and cheetahs." "A mighty river divides this land." "It marks the boundary between two rival families of lions." "To the south lives the River Pride, six lionesses and their cubs." "They're a close-knit family, and rely on each other for comfort and protection." "Layla is the oldest and most experienced lioness." "She has just one cub, six-month-old Mara." "It took us three months to find the right lion pride, because we were after something very specific." "We needed lions that the audience could readily identify." "And then we came across the River Pride, which was the pride we work ed with." "And that was really good right from the beginning, because it had six females, many cubs of two or three different sizes, and just one male who was quite old, but a magnificent-looking lion." "There were three lions that stuck out particularly." "The male had a tooth that was split vertically, right down the middle, so one half of the tooth hung down outside his lip." "So anyone in the audience could immediately recognize him and also feel kind of sorry for him." "He was lik e a hero with a fatal flaw." "Then there was a female in the pride who was obviously very old, and she had a very badly injured paw." "We couldn't work out why, but she limped very badly." "And she had this little cub with her who had such a haunted kind of expression on her face." "So, you'd already got three lions that just brimmed full of character." "Fang lets all other lions know that he alone rules the southern kingdom." "North of the river lives a very different cat, the fastest creature on land," "a cheetah." "Sita's life is different from a lion's in every way..." "When we first arrived to start filming, we were near this marshy area, which is an open bit of grass, and we found Sita in there with cubs." "She had six cubs at the time, which is why we called her Sita, which means six in Swahili, and we couldn't believe our luck." "We thought she was very near where the lions like to hang out, but a lot of cheetah mothers choose that bit of grass to have their cubs, because it's featureless." "You wouldn't necessarily go in the middle of that bit of grass." "SIMON:" "Cubs certainly are exposed to any number of dangers, whether it be lions, of course, hyenas, but also jackals, eagles, just about anything." "So, we knew that there was the potential for very high drama in the story of her family life and the development of her young family, and sure enough, there were tragedies, and she lost some cubs along the way," "but also she was a mature enough female to stand a good, strong chance of bringing at least some of her litter through those adverse conditions." "And she proved to be just that, a top mum." "The Thomson 's gazelles she favors are almost as fast and very agile." "ALASTAI R:" "When you set your stuff up to film a hunt, what you have to do is get with the prey." "Because the cheetah will run towards the prey and what you want is..." "The famous word, you know, the cheetah coming down the barrel, coming straight at you." "And so what you do is you position yourself way..." "You spot the prey before the cheetah spots the prey, you move around, often 300 or 400 yards behind the prey, because the prey initially will run away from the cheetah, and we work in teams." "Because apart from our cameraman, we almost always have two spotters, because often in this position, the cameraman can no longer see the cheetah, so we have another spotter who says, "She's going, she's going."" "And then he has to be ready." "Even with that understanding and knowledge and preparation and perfect positioning, it's still unbelievably hard." "And to keep a running cheetah in perfect focus is one of the greatest challenges in wildlife filmmaking." "And Simon did it, and Sophie did it, a number of times, and they've done it particularly beautifully on an amazing high-speed camera called the Phantom, which can record at up to 1,000 frames per second." "And that transforms the cheetah from obviously a very speedy animal, it slows it down." "But at that sort of pace, you can see every movement, every sinew, every muscle, everything." "And you just realize, this animal is perfectly adapted for one thing, and that is an extraordinary burst of speed for 100, 200, 300 meters." "After that, it's exhausted." "But you only really appreciate its true skill and its ability to trip its prey." "They trip their prey up with a tiny movement of their leg." "To see that in slow motion is one of the most extraordinary things in the movie." "Success." "Sita's cubs will not go hungry today." "The river is a great bringer of life to this wilderness, but it can also be a deadly foe." "Towards the end of March, there are not a lot of animals left in the Mara for lions to feed on." "And at that time, the pride were beginning to show problems with lack of food, a lot of them were quite thin, you could begin to see ribs." "Anyway, one day, they were walking along the river, and they were obviously following a scent." "And when I got down there, they were just approaching a hippo that had died, and it was washed up by the current onto the edge of the bank." "It was really exciting because the three lionesses just left the hippo, and just went straight to the water's edge, and really started growling at the crocs who just backed, just slowly backed away again." "Anyway, so they went back to feeding again, and then the larger croc started moving forward, at which point, the male with the brok en tooth suddenly decides he's gonna frighten them, so he piles in on the crocs." "And he went right into the water as well, which seems a bit foolhardy." "But anyway, he went straight into the water, and he's really roaring at the crocs." "I mean, like, his nose and the croc's nose were only this far apart." "And he was really roaring, and it look ed phenomenal." "And the crocs would just go..." "Lik e that, and their mouths would open, and it was like his head was nearly in it, pushing them back." "And they didn't go quick, but they were backing away quite slowly." "And I think he did that about four or five times, and it was really quite impressive." "A crocodile-infested river does have one benefit." "It protects the pride from invasion from the north." "The northern kingdom is ruled by Fang's greatest enemy," "Kali." "Every single day, you always go out with hope that the big thing's gonna happen." "And we'd had a lot of success, but we were still looking to find Kali and his five sons sort of wandering around." "So, I said to the team, "Okay, guys, tomorrow we're gonna go out," ""we're gonna find Kali and his sons all out roaring at dawn," ""and they're gonna be on the move, or something," ""and we're gonna get all this stuff," and it was a joke." "Because it was so impossible that that could happen." "We drove out that morning, we bumped into Kali and four of his sons, and they were literally on maneuvers, and a lot of the big sequence you see at the beginning of the film was all shot that morning." "It was glorious golden light, just as the sun was coming up, and we had all these lions wandering around for a two-hour period, just behaving like film stars." "And at the end, the ridiculous thing happened." "They all kind of sat down together, with Kali right in the middle, posing as if it was a poster shoot." "So, sometimes your dreams do come true." "Kali is little Mara's greatest danger." "For now, the river is high, a barrier that Kali will not cross." "But eventually, its waters will fall." "For Sita 's five cubs, living in their snug little home seems like paradise." "The cubs are now old enough for their first trip." "The gazelle herds have moved on, and the family needs to catch up." "Approaches to conservation have evolved over the years and decades." "Fifty years ago, there was a lot of focus on species." "People would focus specifically on elephants or specifically on gorillas." "AWF's approach now is to focus on the entire ecosystem, the community of species and the habitats that they live in." "We do still focus on species of special concern and species that are, if you will, landscape defining." "Elephants is a large species that sometimes migrate throughout the year." "When you're able to protect elephants and their habitat, you're, in fact, protecting many other species at the same time." "What an amazing first adventure." "Massive herds still cross Fang's southern kingdom, so food is plentiful for the River Pride." "Layla may be old, but she is the most experienced hunter." "She knows the best place to stage an ambush." "The lionesses hunt as a team." "With Layla leading, they slowly begin to close the trap." "Despite her aging body, Layla is determined to help the pride." "Hunting is always dangerous." "Layla and her sisters must eat quickly if they are to get the reward they deserve." "Fang, the protector, demands the lion's share." "For Layla, the hunt is a disaster." "A zebra's kick has injured her further." "Staying fit is critical for a lioness." "The pride cannot carry a female who is too weak to hunt." "Something's wrong." "Kali and his sons are on patrol." "Lions are Sita 's greatest enemy." "A male is more than five times her size." "As a single cheetah, she would flee." "Sita was a surprising mum to these cubs." "She obviously had a lot of experience." "We knew that because we'd known her for some years, but also, she took risks for herself to save her cubs that were incredible." "The first lion encounter took me very much by surprise." "I remember looking at the male's face as he was coming up the hill, and there was a look of deadly intent on his face, without a doubt." "He'd seen the cubs, and he meant business, he was coming straight for Sita." "And to see her walking to within, what must have been, a meter of the face of this mortal enemy." "Had she been caught by him, he would've killed her." "If you'd like, to tak e her risk to the edge that was at the point of breaking," "only to turn and run at precisely the right moment, and to save not just her skin, but the skin of her cubs, that was special for me." "That was very special." "I've seen cheetahs facing lions before." "I've never seen them leave it, to what my eyes look lik e, a critically dangerous point." "And she was so confident of her ability." "It was an illustration of her confidence as an adult, mature, female cheetah to know just how far she could push it." "Sita is risking everything." "Her speed has won the day, for now." "Her terrified cubs are scattered and lost, in danger until they're back with their mother." "Time is not on their side." "The dark will cloak other predators." "The next morning, we found her calling, which is never a good sign with a cheetah with small cubs." "And she was calling and calling very plaintively, and we could only see three cubs." "And she was in one area and moving around this one area, and there wasn't anything obvious, there wasn't hyenas around or lions around." "There were some lions quite far away, there wasn't anything particularly close." "But she was distressed, and there were only three cubs, so something had happened." "And you really always hope in those situations that a little face is going to pop out, as it has done in the past." "They're so vulnerable when they're little." "I mean, their pelts afford them some protection, because they're very easily disguised in long grass, but the reality is that they've got no defense." "They can't climb trees at that age." "They can bolt down a hole, they can 't run particularly fast, but you kind of also just have to get along with it." "And actually the amazing thing was, three hours later, she gave us a sort of life lesson, because she sort of went, "Right, that's it."" "And on she went." "It's like, "Oh, okay."" "The season is changing and the pride lands are drying." "The great herds are moving on in search of greener pastures." "They may be gone for a year or more." "With the herds gone..." "As an event starts unfolding in front of your eyes, you're trying to capitalize moments that will tell the story of something that's taking a long time to unfold." "And a classic example of that is how both the handicapped female and her cub were realizing that the cub's best chances of survival lay with the pride and not with her mum." "But both of them were very torn by this, you could see that, because the cub would often run to catch up with the pride, then stop, look back at her mum, not know whether she should k eep with the pride or wait for her mum." "Lik ewise with the mum, sometimes she just sat down and couldn't move." "And her cub would stay with her." "It was almost as though they were transcending their animal bonds and moving into the realm that we as people could understand." "Some people don't agree that you can actually read emotions in an animal's face." "But I often thought that there was a certain desperation in this lion's face as she was trying to k eep up with the lions in front of her, because she probably depended on them for food, whereas in the past, she was probably one of the lead lionesses," "because of her injury." "So, she had obviously been going into frays with other groups of lions or other males or whatever, and she had got herself injured, and was unable to do that anymore." "Layla forces herself to try and follow." "Mara stays with Layla, but is in danger now." "Mother and daughter have lost the protection of the pride." "Layla must find the strength to catch up, for the sake of her daughter." "Sita's cubs are growing in leaps and bounds." "In their minds, they're the fiercest hunters in the land." "Enemies approach." "Three cheetah brothers." "They may be fellow cheetahs, but these brothers can be dangerous for Sita's cubs." "They are the one foe she cannot outrun." "KEITH:" "Clearly the cheetah boys, the brothers, as we call them, are a big part of our film." "But they've got a really interesting story." "We actually got to know them when they were quite small cubs, a little bit like Sita's cubs, and watched them grow up." "And sort of when they were getting near the point of becoming independent, tragedy struck, and their mum was killed." "But fortunately, the local authorities here decided that they would try and help them to independence." "And they fed them for a few months, and slowly took their food away, and encouraged them to hunt more for themselves, and it work ed." "And they became independent cheetah males." "And look at them now, they're the lords of Rhino Ridge." "Male cheetahs, unlik e lions, as a rule, do not hurt or kill cubs." "And we didn't know if these cubs were their cubs, some other male's cubs." "But also, each situation, you can never presume, so you got to be ready." "And they were walking towards them with massive intent." "And the three girls sat in the grass, and they just look ed so vulnerable." "They were just tiny, little, delicate things, and these massive males just pumping testosterone stalking right at them." "And they just hammered in, and two little cubs scattered, and this one little cub, I'll never forget it, she just stood her ground, and it was lik e," ""Oh, my goodness, you are your mother's daughter."" "She was phenomenal, she just hissed and spat at this big male, and luckily, I'd stayed on her, I hadn't followed another cub." "And you could see this little feisty thing." "And it was all right, they were fine." "In this land, even bullies get bullied." "The lionesses are tired after their long journey." "But cubs will be cubs and siesta time is soon over." "New playmates are always welcome." "Luckily, he can 't get the lid off." "Layla and Mara have braved the long journey and finally caught up." "But their timing couldn't be worse." "The river has fallen." "The pride's protective moat has gone." "Kali sees his chance to invade the southern kingdom." "Kali and his largest son cross the crocodile-infested waters." "Fang senses the danger." "Sounding strong might deter an attack." "But Kali is not fooled." "Fang sees it's two against one." "His chances are slim." "Kali attacks." "Fang has no answer." "Kali's son threatens, too." "Fang deserts his pride, leaving them unprotected." "Kali is poised for takeover." "It was absolutely obvious to us that the elderly lioness who was very badly injured, sometimes she could barely put her front paw to the ground, was utterly key to the success of the whole pride." "And the reason we came to that conclusion was the day that she, despite her terrible handicap, put herself in the firing line between intruding males and the rest of the pride." "It gave the rest of the pride and the cubs a chance to hide." "It gave the male a chance to regain his strength and come back and really kind of sort the intruding males out." "And we realized that the reason that she had this bad, bad handicap was probably because she'd done this so often in the past." "And so, she was a heroine with a fatal flaw." "And that is basically what anyone needs in a drama." "Layla and the lionesses have saved the pride and their precious cubs." "Kali has lost this battle, but next time he may bring reinforcements." "Fang has also been saved by the lionesses." "But for how long?" "The attack has taken a terrible toll." "This little cub is badly hurt and lucky to be alive, but Mara is nowhere to be found." "Layla has taken another devastating blow in the fight." "It takes all her strength just to get to her feet." "She must find her Mara." "With a mother's desperate hope, she calls for her cub." "Mara has survived." "Her mother's bravery has saved her." "There is no greater bond than that between a lioness and her cub." "The rains have returned, but the herds are still far away." "Hunting is never easy." "Now, it's dangerous for Sita as well." "Hyenas." "Sita has already lost two of her cubs to these deadly enemies." "With wild animals in a national park, the rules are very simple." "It's a wild place, and people do not interfere with what's happening." "A, it's not allowed, and B, morally, it is wrong to do that, because if you start interfering with things, where do you kind of stop?" "You end up managing the place more like a zoo than a wild habitat." "So, the easiest thing to say is," ""Absolutely, you just watch and you observe," ""that's the only right you have to be there."" "It's impossible when you're working alongside these animals for such protracted periods not to care about them and, of course, you watch little cubs grow, and you see them facing mortal danger, and you empathize with them," "and it's impossible not to be affected by loss when some of them get killed." "But I have to say, I don't think I'm hardened, but I am very clear about my role here, and that is one of a passive observer." "That's all I have ever been, that's all I will ever be." "I do not have any part to play in their lives, other than to hopefully illustrate the drama and the beauty of their lives so that others may care about them, and their homeland of the Masai Mara and other places like it" "can remain pristine in perpetuity." "But, yes, the temptation to intervene might be there from time to time, but the golden rule of "you just do not have a part to play"" "remains paramount." "You could change the course of nature." "The whole point is that you're recording something natural, you're not getting involved, you're not making it biased in any way." "And if you see a hyena going up to one of the cubs, your heart is in your mouth, you're terrified, but you just can't, it's nature." "You've gotta let it happen." "The hyenas have been kept at bay." "This time, Sita 's courageous defense has saved the cubs." "Cold, hard rain." "This is a time of suffering for everyone." "For the River Pride, the cold rain has been a blessing in disguise." "It allows them to appreciate the bond and protection of a larger family." "One of Layla 's sisters, Malaika, has small cubs of her own." "With her injuries not healing," "Layla is drawn closer to her sister's family." "If Layla builds a bond with her sister, then Malaika might look after Mara as well as her own cubs." "Layla's time is short." "Strengthening the bond with her sister may be Mara's best chance to live." "Layla may soon have to give up her cub." "And Mara 's life will depend on getting closer to her cousins." "Agriculture is really important to Africa for one very principal reason." "Africa is currently not able to feed itself, and because of that, many governments have prioritized this as the one sector where they want to focus development." "So, it's important for AWF to recognize that agriculture, and agriculture expansion, agriculture investment, are growing on the continent." "What African Wildlife Foundation sees is that in most of the world, when modernization has come up, wildlife has decreased." "But the opportunity that we see in Africa is that with foresight and planning, it would be possible for the modernization of African economies with a very significant wildlife resource still intact in these places that we call the African Heartlands." "If left uncontrolled, if left unchecked, the threats to those heartlands is lik ely to be very severe for several reasons." "One, many of the landowners who are attempting to undertak e agriculture do so with very little knowledge of the climatic and soil conditions that are needed for planting various crops." "They do so with little in the way of agriculture technology, they do so with very little information." "And what we have found tends to happen is that there is areas that are converted that are extremely unproductive." "As Africa continues to develop, and as human populations grow, and as modernization occurs, it won't be possible to conserve wildlife everywhere." "However, we believe there is still time, there are magnificent, large conservation landscapes." "These are the great conservation and tourism destinations of the future, and we call them the African Heartlands." "AWF is presently working in nine of these places, we've identified 25 landscapes that we'd like to be working in over the coming years." "Layla struggles to find a quiet, safe place to be alone." "The pride is now far away." "Mara searches for any scent, any sign of her mother, but it's not there." "All alone with her precious cub far away," "Layla, at last, gives up the fight." "Everyone comes to the Mara to see the Big 5, and all the charismatic cats, and the elephants and the rhinos, and they're wonderful and I love them, but sometimes it's the more obscure creatures" "that really make your heart race when you see one." "And one morning, Sophie and I were looking for the cheetahs, and we had both driven up Look out Hill, which is this little pyramid hill about half an hour's drive from camp." "And we were scanning the area where we had seen her the day before." "And we each took a different direction, and I was facing east and she was facing west, and we were scanning." "And I had my binoculars, and I was searching around, and I saw amid this little group of zebras and topi these two little brown animals moving around, and they seemed to be joined together." "And I thought, "Oh, they're hyenas."" "And they were doing something funny, and so I look ed and I thought, "No, of course they're not hyenas, they're kangaroos,"" "'cause they were up on their back legs, and they were boxing and they had big, long tails." "And then I thought, "There are no kangaroos here."" "And I look ed and look ed and I said," ""Sophie, turn your car around!" "Quick, quick, quick,"" "on the radio and she turned round, and I said, "It's aardvarks, it's aardvarks."" "We'd spent the day googling everything we could about aardvarks, and it has never been recorded, and to have seen that, and to have recorded it is invaluable, I think." "I remember the first time we were ever told that this pride actually crossed the river." "That became lik e the holy grail of the filming, so unusual to see lions in water, and to be able to film them crossing the Mara River, with all its attendant horrors of crocodiles and hippos and rapids," "would've given us some unique footage." "But it's easier said than done." "It was well over a year before I got any lion moving across the river." "You'd get lions going down to the river, and they'd just have a drink, and then they'd go back up." "And after that, our luck changed, and we were able to film males crossing the river, females crossing the river, and each time, it was spellbinding." "Nothing for it, no other words can describe it but spellbinding." "Kali goes to greet his sons." "They have been separated for some time." "You see a lion and 80% to 90% of the time, it might just as well be a rug." "It's on its back, it's flat, it's doing nothing." "But for that 10% of life, when they are galvanized into action, there is nothing that embodies the drama and the power and the might of the natural world more than a male lion." "And a male lion fighting with another, it gives me goosebumps just to think about it." "Everything about it, the physical power, the sound, the sheer single-minded devotion to a cause is breathtaking in every way." "So to witness that, very dramatic." "Together, they are the most powerful force in the land." "All the lions in a pride, traditionally, have totally different characters." "Some can be good mothers, some can be good hunters, some can be really good defenders of the territory, because the lion's pride is, actually, the territory is controlled by the females, it's not controlled by the males." "The males are allowed into the territory, or they fight their way in to replace other males that have been with the females, but the core territory is maintained by the females." "And if you don't have females that can fight with other land-grabbing prides around them, then you lose the territory." "It shrinks, and you end up getting pushed out." "And all those and not all of them the same." "Some can be cowards, but they can be a really good mother, and not all the lions are good mothers." "So, if there's a female who can suckle different cubs at different ages, that's fine for all the cubs, and they all benefit from it." "And it's one of the things about lion prides that I really lik e, the cohesion of all the different characters that usually make it work together." "Kali and his sons are coming with a vengeance." "Fang's enemies lock in." "They launch the attack." "Fang's only hope is escape." "He runs for his life." "Fang will be shown no mercy if he stays." "Kali's gang is victorious, and Fang is never seen again." "Now the invaders attack the rest of the River Pride." "The fighting is over." "Kali and his sons rule." "Their will is now law on both sides of the river." "Kali's sons try to make peace with the lionesses." "But in the battle the youngsters were driven away." "The pain of losing them is still too fresh." "The pride's young males are in the greatest danger." "Kali's gang view them as a threat and hunt them down." "Mara also fled in the battle, but as a lioness, is in less danger." "For the first time in her life, she is alone." "She has lost everything." "Kali's gang drive out Mara 's young male cousins, banishing them from the pride lands forever." "African Wildlife Foundation is very concerned about climate change." "Put simply, the continent of Africa has contributed the least to the causes of climate change, but will be impacted disproportionately." "We're concerned about how it's gonna affect ecosystems, how it's going to affect wildlife and how it's going to affect people." "People have ask ed us what is our approach to addressing climate change, and it's really quite simple." "The answer is, once again, large landscapes in the African Heartlands." "Because we've seen, time and time again, that large landscapes will be more resilient to the stresses that climate change will definitely bring." "The current drags them down into deeper water." "They are in over their heads in every sense." "They've escaped, but just by the skin of a crocodile's teeth." "With all the warring between lions south of the river, life in the north has been relatively carefree for Sita." "The cubs have grown to young adults, but they're still cubs at heart." "Each of my filming stints was separated by between three to six months, and obviously, when you leave the cheetahs when they're growing up, and suddenly they go from four to 18 months, you leave a little animal, and you come back to an almost fully grown one." "And it was fantastic to be able to observe the changes in their behavior, and they were still really playful and cub-like and fun to be around." "They didn't stop." "And I think especially when they were about 18 months old, they just decided they wanted to go after anything that moved." "So, you would be on the go all day, every day." "From when you found them, they would be after jackals, servals, reedbuck, elephant, giraffe, I mean, they were mad." "But it was all about just testing their strength and their limits, and often it came back on them, whether it was an ostrich that chased them, or a jackal that gave them a good yapping." "The savanna is the greatest schoolyard, but some of the other kids are a bit different." "A serval cat is drafted into a game of tag." "It's no fun for the serval, but the young cheetahs can safely test their skills against smaller teeth and claws." "And wouldn't every cat just love to chase a dog?" "A jackal is the perfect size." "Lesson three, even little dogs bite back." "Lesson four, hyenas." "The cubs remember all too well their terrifying encounters with hyenas when they were small." "Now, they must learn to stand their ground." "The cubs have finally come to terms with hyenas." "They're close to becoming independent cheetahs." "But not just yet." "With her family blown to the wind," "Mara has found living alone a challenge." "With no pride to hunt with her, she's going hungry." "Warthogs seem to be the perfect meal, small, tasty and easy to catch." "Not quite so easy after all." "The preservation of this wildlife in Kenya and in Africa as a whole is very critical, because tourism, which is mainly focusing on wildlife, is one of the biggest revenue earners for Kenya, and especially for other countries, like Tanzania," "for other countries, like Botswana and South Africa, that still have and still maintain a very good wildlife population." "So, in terms of revenue generation, which comes through tourism, which relies on wildlife, preservation of wildlife, preservation of these corridors is quite important." "Because there isn't as much wildlife left everywhere else, the possibility and the potential for using this wildlife resource for tourism and for economic growth for the country is also very, very high, both for the country, but also for the continent." "And we believe it's a really good area of economic advantage that African continent has not really fully developed." "And I think, with time, the continent will realize that this is going to be one of the areas of greatest comparative advantage." "And for that reason, it's essential that we preserve them for economics, but it's also important for the future generations, that what we're able to enjoy in this generation, generations to come are also able to enjoy the magnificence of our wildlife." "She must follow them or her family will starve." "For the cubs, this may be their most dangerous lesson yet." "Sita rarely crosses the river." "She knows it's deadly." "The day the cheetahs crossed the Mara River was an extraordinary day, because they'd been looking at the river and we just thought, "Oh, no." ""It's full of crocodiles, full of hippos, not a hope."" "They'd been looking and going backwards and forwards, but obviously she had decided the other side, for whatever reason, was where she wanted to be." "It seemed lik e unending hours waiting to find out what had happened, and suddenly the water rippled, and there was this splash, and there was this cheetah swimming out round the bend in front of me," "and then another and then all four, and I just sat there watching, trying to tak e photos, but just watching, thinking, "My goodness," ""what if they don't make it?" "What if a crocodile gets one?"" "And when they come out the other side, you just feel so pleased that they're okay." "And it's like watching your sister swimming across a crocodile-infested river, it really is." "When you've spent 18 months with them, you really care for them." "The River Pride lionesses once again proclaim their ownership of the pride lands." "They have made peace with Kali." "Their new ruler has become a committed protector." "Mara is still an outcast." "With food scarce, the lionesses don't want Mara taking a share." "She must fend for herself." "It seems harsh, but the other lionesses have new priorities." "Cubs." "Kali's cubs." "Kali has achieved his goal." "The lionesses are now raising his cubs, not Fang's." "Sita and her family confidently stride across Kali's land." "The young cheetahs now have the confidence to challenge everything in their path." "Even lions." "But wait." "The young cheetahs have yet to learn that lions live in prides." "The hunters are being hunted." "This lesson is not hunting lions, it's escaping them!" "Kali." "The game is over." "The most important lesson, never mess with lions." "The sight that Mara and all the lions have been longing for." "At last the great herds are returning to the pride lands." "Lions and cheetahs have to hunt for food, and because they have to hunt for food, then they also have to make sure that they follow the migration patterns of the animals, because their survival also depends entirely on the other wildlife." "If you look at lions, for instance, or cheetahs, these are predators, and because they are predators, they prey on certain animals." "Normally, they would go for either the very old animals, or they would go for the weak ones, or they would go for the young ones, or they would go for the sick ones, and that's how they're able to get their food." "And therefore, if the migration pattern changes, or if anything happens within the migration of the wildlife, then it's not only affecting the wildlife itself, the different species, but it also affects the predators," "and we are not talking only of lions and cheetahs, but we're also talking of hyenas." "No longer hungry, Mara has one last goal, to be accepted back into the River Pride." "Sita's work is done." "She has taught her cubs everything they need to know about this wilderness." "The cubs have survived the toughest of upbringings, but now they know what's safe..." "I genuinely feel incredibly lucky to have spent the best part of two years filming Sita, and witnessing, hopefully not affecting, and recording her life." "And amazed at her tenacity, at her courage, and the legacy she leaves behind by way of her cubs." "If she has successfully raised," "I don't know, one, two, three of her cubs, they will populate the Mara, and that's a phenomenal achievement." "And it was the most amazing experience to watch her." "She's a beautiful, beautiful cheetah." "I'm very biased, but she is the most beautiful cheetah I've ever filmed, and she is the most courageous cheetah I've ever filmed, and I just hope we've done her justice." "Mara is desperate to rejoin her mother's pride into which she was born, but will Malaika and the lionesses welcome her back?" "I think this movie is different from any other that I've work ed on, because there's a huge emphasis on character and character development, and there's a lot of close-ups." "There's a lot of space, lots of breathing space, time to get into the head of Sita, or of the lioness, or of the lion cub." "And therefore, I think what would happen, and I'm hoping it will happen, is that people will forget that they are cats." "They'll just see them as, you know, as Sita and as this lioness, and really get into their skin, and start thinking lik e them, and therefore, get emotionally involved." "The feeling in the film is there's so much hope within the animals themselves that are being filmed that they've got all the strength inside them, even in some really dire circumstances, to actually come through." "My dream for this film is that people who have got absolutely no interest in wildlife come and see it just 'cause they've heard that it's a great film, that it's got great characters, it's got strong stories," "it'll mak e you laugh, it'll mak e you cry." "And will then draw in a completely fresh gang of people who will then get excited by what wild animals do and what happens out there." "I'm very, very excited." "I want this to be..." "In a way, I don't want this ever to be viewed as a wildlife film." "I just want it to be viewed as a film, and it just happens to be about wildlife." "(VOCALIZI NG)" "(U PBEAT MUSIC PLAYING)" "(H UMMI NG)" "I don 't know where this road is going to lead me" "But I'm hoping that with you I can make it through" "I've had enough of this life to lead me" "Right up to the edge of the world I knew" "I can't wait" "Just to see another day" "If it means it's one more day" "That I'm with you" "Down this road" "We'll look back at all we've known" "Found a love that can't grow old" "Just passing through" "Passing through" "The world I knew" "The world I knew" "I've never seen a sunrise like this one" "No" "It's like the whole world's waking up for us" "They say tomorrow can't promise us anything" "So I'll take every moment and make it now" "Yeah, yeah" "I can't wait" "Just to see another day" "If it means it's one more day" "That I'm with you" "I'm with you" "Down this road" "We'll look back at all we've known" "Found a love that can't grow old" "Just passing through" "Passing through" "The world I knew" "I'll be loving your light till it fades away" "Tell the world I know" "'Cause it will never change" "When something feels so right" "Just can't turn the page" "There's too much to lose" "We're just passing" "Through" "Time won't stop" "Wish that we could turn back the clock" "I can't wait" "Just to see another day" "If it means it's one more day" "That I'm with you" "I'm with you" "Down this road" "We'll look back at all we've known" "Found a love that can't grow old" "Just passing through" "The world I knew" "The world I knew" "The world I knew" "The world I knew" "The world I knew" "The world I knew"