Mashirt: Leopard Land for premiere at Wild Screen Festival Botswana
Mashite – Mashite: Filmed entirely at Mashite Game Reserve, one of Africa's most famous leopard sighting destinations, one of the lands of Mashite: Leopard, is a new documentary following the fate of a climate-affected leopard family. It will premiere at the Wild Screen Festival in Maun, Botswana on June 13th.
Filmed over three years, the DOC is set on 42-000 hectares of privately owned land entirely in the preserved wilderness area known as the Mashigame Reserve and North Turigame Reserve in South Africa. Mashatu is world-renowned for its incredible leopard sightings and is one of the last natural shelters for free roaming leopards. The reserve is located on the far eastern corner of Botswana, where the Limpopo and Shashe rivers converge and Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe gather. The highly diverse landscape, the background features wide open plains, meadows, river forests, rocky hills, marshlands and majestic sandstone ridges.
The documentary uses cutting-edge technologies, including drones and highly sensitive low-light cameras, to capture rare images of the fascinating species, revealing behaviors that have never been observed before. Director Julien Naar is directed by Wild Web Africa's Wim and Mags Folter as cinematography and field producers, and is produced by Zedd for France Television and National Geographic C RTS.
The film's premiere marks a proud moment for Mashit, both as the documentary setting and as the main sponsor of Botswana at the Wild Screen Festival. The premier will also mark the closure event for Botswana, the Wild Screen Festival, to be held in Maun from June 12th to 13th, 2025. This two-day natural storytelling celebration features two lineups of speakers representing two pitch competitions in Africa, some of the most exciting and most exciting voices of wildlife films across Africa.
Includes industry leaders from BBC Studios, Disney, the natural history film unit Botswana, Earth Touch and Botswana TV.
Massacher Game Reserve majority shareholders and longtime Botswana conservation advocates, Steve and Maggie Lansdowne, are advocating for sustainable tourism and key wildlife corridors, and are kindly supporting the festival. This support marks an influential partnership between the two Bristols of Bristol, based in the UK, and tells us a common mission to enhance Botswana's outstanding natural heritage and international profile of talented wildlife filmmaking communities, and to promote tourism and the growth of creative economy.
The complete program and tickets for the Wild Screen Festival Botswana are available here. For more information about Mashatu, click here.
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