African Cats, the third release from Disneynature (“Earth” and “Oceans” being the first two) is one of the most fascinating films you will ever see. No, I'm not just saying that because cats are my favorite animal. The storytelling and the level of relatability is so much more than you could ever imagine.
African Cats is a story about family and survival and so much more. The animals will captivate you from the very beginning and the take you on one of the most thrilling adventures to date. In fact, I was so blown away by this film, that I jumped at the opportunity to sit down with the film's directors,
Alastair Fothergill and director/producer,
Keith Scholey.
An epic true story set against the backdrop of one of the wildest places on Earth, “African Cats” captures the real-life love, humor and determination of the majestic kings of the savanna. Narrated by Oscar®-nominated actor Samuel L. Jackson, the story features Mara, an endearing lion cub who strives to grow up with her mother’s strength, spirit and wisdom; Sita, a fearless cheetah and single mother of five mischievous newborns; and Fang, a proud leader of the pride who must defend his family from a rival lion and his sons. Disneynature brings “The Lion King” to life on the big screen in this True Life Adventure directed by Keith Scholey and Alastair Fothergill (“Earth”). 
What attracted you towards the setting of Kenya?
Keith: I had been working for a long time in East Africa, in fact I was brought up in Kenya as a kid so I’ve got history there. Wildlife, especially African wildlife is a thing I’ve specialized in as a filmmaker for television. I’ve been around the block in East Africa. Maasai Mara in Kenya is still for me the best place of everywhere to make these kind of films like
African Cats. It’s got such a huge density of animals in a small place. So you see these interactions between these animals which is very rare anywhere else. We knew that’s what we needed for the movie. So really, when we decided to do this movie. Maasai Mara was the only place.
That’s interesting that you mention the herds because I did notice that. When you watch The Lion King, you think, “That’s really cool, all those herds.” But when you see it in real life, how you guys captured it...it really puts it into perspective.
Keith: Yeah. The thing about the Maasai Mara is that it actually joins one of the biggest wildlife reserves in Africa. There is a huge wildebeest and zebra migration that still operates there. But the Maasai Maraa is just a strange little place that gets rainfall almost all the year round so you can have so many animals living there. Then the migration comes around which tops it all off. it’s quite a unique little spot. That’s why we picked it.
The film tells quite a few stories including the 2 prides and a single mother raising her children but were there any stories that you really wanted to capture that didn’t make it in the final cut?
Keith: There are loads and loads of scenes that remained on the cutting floor. We had a whole story about the River Pride when all of the young males that got cast out after the take over. All sorts of adventures happened then, but we decided to stick with Mara’s story and what happens to her. We’ve got all of these greats things and hopefully we’ll find a place to share them at some stage.
The film is really such an emotional story, I know in the audience I was in, there were a few individuals crying. Did you plan that out, for there to be so many emotions involved?
Alastair: It was very important to us to know that we weren’t making a TV documentary. This is a movie and I think people go to the movies expecting a real, strong, emotional story line. Obviously, we would want control of our actors. Keith in particular has extraordinary experience with those cats. So when writing the script, we tried to have a very strong story line. But all the way through filming, the cats were re-writing the story. You know, as a Disney movie, it has to have a happy ending and Sita did incredibly well! Cheetahs often fail to bring up...to bring up three cubs, we didn’t know she would be that successful. And we really didn’t know what happened to Mara. When Mara was cast out in the end, there was a real concern that she would starve. So when we saw her come together with her pride in the end, that happened in the last weeks of filming and we were so pleased to have her back. We were delighted that the story is such an emotional story because that’s what makes it a movie rather than a documentary.
Keith: I think following these animals, this is actually how it is. Their lives are Shakespearean. They really are. The ambition of the film was to try and get that across to the audience. As Alastair said, we wanted to make a movie that was an emotional drama and also wanted to show that their lives are emotional. They have huge ups and downs and have all of the things Hollywood movies are made from...but it’s real.
And surprisingly so relatable.
Keith: Yes! Yes it is. Because lions are social, quite a lot of what goes on in a lion society really does translate into our society. Mothers are the core of a family. Dynasties or prides go down the mother chain but you’ve got males who want to come in and rule. You’ve got this strange social dynamic going on between the males, who come in for a short reign. But since they are not really the core, they’ll get disposed of at some point. Lionesses know this. They know this. I think what we identify with is that core of motherhood and what drives family and also the ambiguity of what males bring to the equation. The stuff that’s there, when you see it, you’ll think, “Yeah, I kind of get this.” (
laughs) They are great subjects because you can relate to what’s going on.
So what challenges did you face during filming?
Alastair: I think patience was the principle challenge. Once we got the logistics set up...and Maasai Mara is a fantastic place to work but lions do nothing most of the time, day after day after day after day. So not being able to risk a moment away for those key moments were important. Events like Kali and his sons coming over and taking over the pride, that was a key moment that happened in a half hour over 3 years of filming. That brings an enormous patience. And it’s very easy to lose lions. At night, we had to get back to our camp and the lions would walk in the night. Sometimes, we’d go weeks without finding Fang or Mara. Cheetahs are a little bit more reliable. Also, the other big challenge is that we genuinely thought that our stars would lose our stars. When the lions attacked, there was a genuine concern there that we’d lose a star. And you can’t afford to lose a star.
Keith: Being able to have the continuity for a 2 year period, we were very lucky to have that.
The scene were we see the cats shivering in the rain was shot beautifully. Were there any other interesting weather changes that took place?
Keith: The Maasai Mara is an interesting place because everyone thinks of Africa as being sunny where the weather is great. In Maasai Mara there are huge storms that come through and when it’s dry, it can become very, very hot. So it gets to the extremes and we tried to reflect that in the film. Actually, for the animals, they can trod through the weather quite happily. The problem for us is that when we operated through vehicles, the cars got stuck all of the time. (
laughs) Filming in the rain can be difficult. With the rain came the wind so we had jacks on the car to jack the car up. We had to think through all of those things. I guess you could say that the weather was more of a challenge for us than it was for them.
What were some lessons that you learned from the cats?
Alastair: I think the main lesson is unbelievable admiration. They are so determined. What Sita went through in the 2 year period of filming and bringing up her cubs was extraordinary. And they constantly surprise you. They surprise you with tenacity and the trust that Laila had to hand over her cub. Those things are amazing really.
Were there any moments that you wanted to interfere but just let nature run its course?
Alastair: There are many moments like that but you absolutely can’t. Our first rule to wild life film making is never disturb, never interfere, never get involved. In a sense, what can you do? The lions would probably go after us and in instances when Mara is starving, are we supposed to go and shoot a wildebeest? There isn’t anything that we can do. Nature is tough out there. This is a family movie but we shared the true drama of the African Savanna.
Keith: I think the moment when not interfering was the biggest challenge was the encounter when hyenas come in and threaten Sita and her cubs. That was really, really hard. As Alastair said, if you break that rule of interference...where do you stop? It just carries on and on and on. You make a rule for one day but by helping someone there, you’re not helping someone else. So it just becomes a big mess. So the best thing is to let the wild be wild and observe.
What did you anticipate the most about filming even before arriving to Kenya?
Keith: Because we shot these animals before, we had an idea of the kind of things that would happen. But we also knew that if you follow the right animals...we took a long time picking who we would follow. Once we were in, the most incredible thing about this was we didn’t know what was going happen but we knew that something would. What ends up happening, you couldn’t have written it. We had to write a script, but at the end of it, it says something along the lines of “By the way, this is all made up. None of this may happen. Big warning.” But what did happen surprised us even more. I went back and read what I originally wrote and thought, “Huh, that’s pretty ordinary.” Nature always writes better scripts than we could ever imagine.
Great point. So how long did it take to pick who you would follow?
Keith: Sita landed in our lap. She was there when we turned up in the Mara and she just had five cubs, so we thought, “We’ll go with that." We had a favorite lion pride for years but they had been very strong and successful. But what was the story? So, then we found another pride with one beat up male with a broken tooth and then we found the rest across the river and knew there was a story there.
Fang was quite a character!
Keith: Yes he was You start off thinking, he’s the guy. He’s going to defend the pride. Actually, this is what male lions do...they count the odds. They can counts roars. When they hear roaring at night, they can count how many lions are roaring and also how old they are. So even before they see each other, they are doing a sum in their heads. What they often do, which is exactly what Fang did was take the approach of, “Well it’s only me but I’ve got a group of really tough girls behind me.” Boys don’t come out of this film really well, do they? It’s a mom’s film.
During the film’s opening week (April 22-28), a portion of the proceeds from that week’s ticket sales will be donated to AWF through the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund to protect the Amboseli Wildlife Corridor, a passage between the Amboseli, Tsavo West and Chyulu Hills National Parks that is frequently used by lions, cheetahs, elephants, zebras, giraffes and a host of other animals in the African savanna.
African Cats opened on Earth Day (April 22, 2011).
Buy tickets here. Tickets for groups of 20 or more are available in the United States by calling 1-888-DISNEY6.
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