The hunters’ story
SAVITHA GAUTAM
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Go behind the scenes to watch an intriguing footage that showcases life in a desert and of its inhabitants in their full glory on the NDTV Documentary channel this June.
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Adventurers: Foster Brothers, Damon Foster and Craig, and some moments during their amazing journey.
Documentaries on the animal kingdom always make you stop and watch. More so, if the location is Africa, best known for its variety of wildlife and game sanctuaries. NDTV’s Documentary channel showcases two such films, which offer viewers a peek at life on the grasslands, of both animal and Man.
The sun beats down harshly on the vast expanse of the great Kalahari desert. But that does not deter bushman iNate. In fact, this is just the perfect day for a big kill. He runs continuously for four hours before he gets the prize - a gemsbok, that magnificent animal that abounds in the Kalahari.
This is just one of the many powerful images that the documentary ‘The Great Dance: A Hunter’s Story,’ to be telecast on June 21 and 22 on NDTV’s Documentary 24x7, has to offer. Directed and photographed by Cape-Town based brothers Craig and Damon Foster, the film tracks the life of the Kalahari San or Bushman, acknowledged by anthropologists as the oldest inhabitants of Southern Africa.
Fascinating facts
Central to the film, which took three years to make, is iNate, who along with mates Karoha and Xlhoase, hunts for his food just as his ancestors have been doing for over 30,000 years. What is fascinating is the way these men are able to track down their victims (gemsboks, springboks or sometimes porcupines) just by looking at the footprints. They can even tell how fresh the mark is! Through their eyes, viewers are exposed to a world that most never know exists even today… a complex world where man and Nature have a strange bond and live in harmony.
Using specially adapted digital camera technology, the Foster brothers capture the desert and its inhabitants in their full glory, be it the graceful leap of the springbok (the antelope that has given its name to South African National Rugby team), the silent walk of a cheetah, the slithering python, the majestic lion or the determined look on iNate’s face as he closes in on his food.
In the introduction, the brothers say, “One of the most dramatic incidents involved a camera attached to a vulture carcass. The birds literally tore the camera apart whilst scavenging the carcass but fortunately the tape and its precious footage survived. And in another we attached a tiny camera that operated via radio frequency to the bushman’s spear which killed a gemsbok.”
Even as the harshness and beauty of the world’s largest expanse of sand is exposed, we see how the paucity of the bushmen’s material wealth is in contrast to the wealth of their knowledge of the wild.
Nothing is as riveting a sight for animal lovers as watching a herd of wildebeest crossing the desert, a pride of lions relaxing under a tree or giraffes munching acacia leaves. Where else can one see such magnificent sights but in the vast wildlife reserves of Africa? But much of Africa’s wildlife is dwindling in number.
Innumerable opinions
Opinions on how to protect the animal life are aplenty. And that’s the theme of the documentary titled ‘Africa Unbottled,’ which is directed by Craig Foster and Bowen Boshier. It will be telecast on NDTV Documentary 24x7 on June 28 and 29.
Told through the eyes of playwright Nicholas Ellenbogen, who considers this country his ‘spiritual home,’ the one-hour film talks of the people who have lived in the remote corners of the country and who are the best judges when it comes to wildlife conservation.
Traversing the length and breadth of Africa in a land rover, Ellenbogen meets different local tribes in six countries - Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana. According to him, enforced hunting bans aren’t always the right solution to save endangered species.
He says, “Such bans often cause overpopulation among the animals and poverty among the people. On the other hand, limited hunting and controlled safaris bring population control to herds and provide much needed revenue for communities.”
Ellenbogen’s new play ‘Guardians of Eden’ in fact draws inspiration from the collected wisdom of these peoples who have a delicately poised relationship with Nature.
As he puts it, “The sooner the world realises that Africa is a massive energy source – full of bright ideas, full of technology that is ancient and tried and tested, full of wisdom that is untapped, full of love and energy of a spiritual nature – the sooner she will prosper.”
The documentary, which was shown on National Geographic Channel, won the ‘Best South African entry’ at the film festival held at the seventh World Wilderness Congress, November 2001.
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