LAS PIEDRAS, Peru — In the documentary "Wildcat," audiences are transported to Hoja Nueva, a research and wildlife conservation center deep in the heart of the Peruvian jungle.
Here we meet two people. Bainbridge Island's Samantha Zwicker is a University of Washington PhD student who has founded the center confronting numerous threats to the animals of the region. Traumatized war veteran Harry Turner, his body covered in tattoos, has joined Zwicker on her mission.
They are soon joined by an ocelot cub named Khan whose fate is heartbreaking. Then comes another orphaned cub, Keanu. Together the two try to prepare Keanu for life on his own. It's something that has never been done successfully in this region.
Though the film has all the potential sentimentality of a Disney wildlife documentary, "Wildcat" tackles adult subject matters like mental health.
We interviewed Zwicker from Hoja Nueva. The signal was understandably imperfect. There, she agreed that at first Turner seemed to be the perfect mother to the tiny ocelot cub.
"It takes a lot for a person to be able to teach an animal how to hunt in a way that's as brutal as a mother would do," she said. "But just being in the jungle for an extended period of time took a toll on Harry's mental health and I think that was reflected in his relationship with Keanu and his almost co-dependency and inability to let go and move on."
The film will have you rooting for everyone, especially the cub.
It was a challenging documentary to make for several reasons. The location is extremely remote, requiring multiple plane rides, journeys along rivers by boat, and long hikes. Also, only Zwicker and Turner could be in close contact with Keanu, so the filmmakers had to teach the pair some shooting techniques.
Executive producer Steve Hall says both became quite adept.
"Part of the magic of the film was capturing a lot of these intimate moments," Hall said.
"Wildcat" offers an early glimpse into the story of Hja Nueva. In the few years since the documentary was filmed, much has changed. Through fundraising, the organization has purchased 7000 acres of pristine rainforest in one of the most remote and unexplored areas of the Peruvian Amazon, the Las Piedras.
Rewilding cats has become a specialty and is now much less hands-on. In a fenced-in enclosure, wildcats like ocelots and jaguars learn to fend for themselves before they are released to the wild. The overall purpose is to stabilize and fortify wild populations to ensure their long-term survival.
Zwicker has been living and working in the Amazon for nine years now. Hall says she is a role model.
"In a way I think she is the next generation's Jane Goodall," he said. "She is really showing the way young women can do amazing things in the world of science conservation."
We see in Zwicker someone who loves her work.
"It's a very rewarding job," she said. "There's a lot of challenges and lots of devastation all the time but we work through it because we all have this hope. Our end goal is we all want to put ourselves out of work, so we work every day to achieve that goal."
"Wildcat," which has received critical acclaim, is streaming on Amazon Prime.
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