"Eye of the Leopard" provides an intimate view into the life of Legadema, a young leopard growing up in Mombo, Botswana.
Filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert started documenting Legadema's life when she was just eight days old. For the next three years, they captured every step of her life in high definition, watching as Legadema transformed from cub to leopardess.
The film is not a typical nature documentary, but a series of flashbacks to Legadema's youth. As Legadema positions herself to ambush a group of vervet monkeys, for example, the film takes us back to when she first learned this behavior by observing her mother hunting monkeys 60 feet up in the forest. Through this observation, Legadema learns a key behavior: gain the high ground first and hunt down.
We meet Legadema's father, who kills a buffalo. And we spend time with her mother as she teaches her young cub about baboons, lions, hyenas and other leopards.
Nearing adulthood, Legadema makes a desperate mistake when she snatches her mother's kill but drops the carcass to hyenas waiting below. Her mother spats and hisses at her and chases her away.
Ultimately, we see Legadema make her first large kill by herself, making the final rite of passage in her journey from cub to leopardess. But it is bittersweet, for just then she hears her mother's cub call and follows. But this time the call is not meant for her. Mother has new cubs. Now Legadema is ready to go out on her own, armed with the instinct and training to create her own legacy as a leopard.
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