National Geographic Channel acquires Latin American Rights of Elizabeth Unger’s Genre Bending Wildlife Crime Documentary “Tigre Gente”

National Geographic Channel has acquired Elizabeth Unger’s wildlife-crime documentary feature “Tigre Gente” in Latin America, where the film will premiere on April 22 as part of the channel’s Earth Day lineup. Limonero Films purchased the film for international distribution. “Tigre Gente,” Unger produced this film with Joanna Natasegara who was nominated for an Oscar. “The White Helmets,” Oscar Nominated For “The Edge of Democracy” And “Virunga.”

Unger began to document the Bolivian battle for the jaguar. Her goal was to be a pioneer in the field of wildlife crime. “by exploring the root cause of the mentality that’s driving the demand,” She says.

The film will be a success, she hopes. “will help battle misconceptions and give Western audiences a better comprehension of Chinese culture and tradition as it pertains to wildlife consumerism.”

She also adds: “We can do better, and we should do better, to understand the other side. It will only be then that we can drive real impact and stop the illegal wildlife trade industry together.”

Unger was just 19 when she became fascinated by the conservation of Bolivian wildlife while studying biology at North Carolina Wilmington. When she was 19 years old, Unger visited the country as a volunteer in order to assist the rehabilitation of wildlife victims from the illegal trade.

“[The experience] just stuck with me. It stuck with me for a few years. And back then, when I was more focused on photojournalism and writing, I still had never really done a documentary. I thought the story would be fascinating, you know, a story about wildlife trafficking in Latin America, just because no one was talking about it in the press. I mean, everyone was focused on elephants and rhinos in Africa. I just wasn’t sure what the story exactly would be.”

After a nap during the day, she found her way to success years later at NYU’s grad school. “I wasn’t going to grad school for conservation. I was going there for food studies, actually. I was really interested in hot button food sustainability issues. But I found myself really missing my roots in wildlife conservation and biology. So, I woke up from this nap, and I thought: I should do a documentary about wildlife trafficking in Bolivia. I’ve already been there. I have contacts. I just need to figure out what the story is. And I thought the film was going to take me six months, because I had never done a film before. And it ended up taking six years, now seven. So that’s kind of how I got into it.”

Two main protagonists are at the center of this documentary. Marcos Uzquiano is a Bolivian ranger and director of Madidi National Park. Unger had been recommended by an Bolivian official to contact Uzquiano in 2015, while conducting research and developing in Bolivia. When she returned to the U.S., Unger set up a Zoom interview. “We had a great meeting together, and Marcos said: ‘As long as your film is something that will showcase Madidi National Park and inspire people to protect that place, I would love to be a part of this.’”

She also adds: “We couldn’t believe how lucky we got. He was just so emotive, and just a great protagonist, a great human.”

The second protagonist is Laurel Chor (an investigative reporter hailing from Hong Kong).

“I knew Laurel from the National Geographic community. We were both grantees. National Geographic Explorers is the title, but essentially, we’re just grantees. National Geographic Society gives us money for projects,” Unger explains.

“I had seen her speak at an event in Washington D.C. at NatGeo headquarters, and I was just blown away. I was just so impressed by Laurel, and I approached her, eventually, and was like: ‘I’m working on this story about wildlife trafficking – on this new trade in jaguar body parts for the Chinese black market. But in every wildlife crime film I’ve ever watched I never see a Chinese protagonist that actually examines or investigates why the demand exists in the first place from the Chinese community. I have never seen a film like that ever. Would you be interested in exploring that with me?’ And she said: ‘Yes, very much so.’ And eventually, she was not only a protagonist, she came on as an executive producer, because she developed her story with our team.”

Unger had been considering adding an American zoologist Alan Rabinowitz as a third character. “He was a prominent jaguar expert. He was called ‘the Indiana Jones of wildlife,’ and went on, you know, the Stephen Colbert show. He was this fascinating figure. He was looking at jaguar trafficking in Suriname and was interested in looking at a different country. And we were thinking about bringing him in as a third protagonist to complement Marcos and Laurel, but he actually passed away from cancer, so we dedicated the film to him at the end of the credits.”

In addition to including the Chinese perspective in this story, it also highlights the Bolivian culture. This film explains why certain Bolivians facilitate the illegal trade of jaguar body parts.

Unger describes the reasons for Unger’s particular approach.

“I love genre-bending work, and I felt like wildlife crime films are traditionally done in a very masculine way. It’s: ‘Get the bad guy’; ‘Who’s the bad guy?’; ‘Who’s responsible for this?’ And you see the heroes coming out and doing their thing. And that’s great. But I wanted to throw my hat in the ring as a female director, with a female majority team, doing a film that’s in a more poetic, raw, visceral way.

“And you can’t do that by only concentrating on the trade, you have to dig deeper into the communities. We are fortunate to have an international team who made the film. We felt our team’s strength would allow us to continue digging into Bolivian community issues, as well as Hong Kong and China. This would help us understand the characters and what motivates them and make the audience more interested in the topic.

“We can’t just focus on the trade and the animals anymore, the storytelling has to be more nuanced, more sophisticated, more well-rounded. And so by digging into that mysticism of the Bolivian lowlands, you get this sort of genre bending kind of element to the wildlife crime thriller, and I think it makes it more interesting. I think it throws a curveball. I think it makes it more human. And the film really is a mix of humans and animals. It’s not just focused on the jaguar. To be honest, a jaguar could be any commodity, any animal. We’re hoping that our storytelling will be seen as something that other filmmakers can use to inspire other people.”

It was not the intention to portray the Chinese as archetypal villains but rather in an empathic manner.

“Oh, yes. These were long conversations I had with Laurel. She really got it. She didn’t think that the Chinese community had been represented well at all in this genre. Together, we created a story which asked more questions.

“While Marcos was figuring out the who and how in Bolivia with the local Bolivians who are supplying these parts, for whatever reason – you can say it’s a cycle of poverty, and just needing money to feed their kids. That was his world. But with Laurel, we really wanted to examine the why, which I don’t think has been done. At least not on a large scale.”

“So, for us, this was a really beautiful way – through Laurel’s world with her family, with experts and friends – to walk through and understand that this is a gray issue. It’s not black and white. And that’s why it’s so difficult to solve. At least with this film, we can go one step further and add into this conversation an important piece of humanism and empathy in order to drive solutions forward.”

Next up for Unger is another project with Natasegara, but she’s not ready to reveal details. “It’s a really special project. So please, stay tuned,” She says.