Film

WILDCAT

Harry Turner had enlisted in the British army in Afghanistan when he was only 18, and the horrors that he observed there traumatized him and led to suicidal behavior. When he traveled to the Peruvian Amazon, he found a new purpose. While he was there, he met a woman named Samantha Zwicker who was involved in a project to rescue wild animals threatened by poachers. The two of them eventually established a personal as well as professional relationship that centered on a young ocelot cub that probably would not have survived without their aid.
They began filming their encounters with the ocelot, and eventually they teamed up with professional filmmakers Melissa Lesh and Trevor Beck Frost to chronicle the arduous steps involved in raising the wild cat and training it to return to the jungle and survive on its own. The film strikes a satisfying balance between wildlife photography, getting remarkably close to the animals, and more intimate, often disturbing human drama.