by Leo Barraclough – Variety

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 has acquired the film for distribution outside Latin America. “Tigre Gente,” which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2021, is produced by Unger alongside Joanna Natasegara, who won an Oscar for “The White Helmets,” and was Oscar nominated for “The Edge of Democracy” and “Virunga.”

When Unger set out to make a feature documentary about the battle to protect the jaguar in Bolivia, her mission was to break new ground in the wildlife-crime genre “by exploring the root cause of the mentality that’s driving the demand,” she says.

She hopes the film “will help battle misconceptions and give Western audiences a better comprehension of Chinese culture and tradition as it pertains to wildlife consumerism.”

She 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 first became interested in the protection of wildlife in Bolivia when she was a biology student at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She was just 19 when she visited the country for the first time in 2009 as a volunteer working to rehabilitate animal victims of the illegal wildlife 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.”