Africa’s Big Game

Africa's Big Game“Eye-popping television” Christopher Dunkley, The Financial Times.

“What a treat to see natural history elated with political nous… The films advanced an important argument about wild animals and the cost of colonialism without giving quarter to soggy sentiment… In the minds of the great white hunters minds they were civilising savagery and from their fantasies an African myth was born.
The film’s preoccupation was charting the consequences of that myth, principally the now competing claims of animal conservation and the right of African people to economic evolution and cultural renewal. A new contract between citizen and creature must be salvaged.”Dave Hill, The Guardian

“This is important television, for it demonstrates not only the complexity of Africa’s development in relation to its magnificent animal population but also how animal husbandry has shaped political attitudes, black and white” Peter Barnard in The Times.

“An intriguing account of our changing attitudes to African wildlife… an excellent film that made use of old natural history films, stiff with condescension, and had also tracked down some rare wildlife of its own…The result was unusually provoking – a thoughtful account of the depredations of the most efficient predator of all”. The Independent.

Film 3 “Gardeners in Eden” (1994) A Scorer Associates production for BBC Natural History Unit, Bristol.