“Day after day, in the sun and the rain and the wind, I climbed into the hills,” recalls Jane Goodall in the first trailer for “Jane.” “This is where I was meant to be. The more I learned, the more I realized how like us [chimps] were.” As the spot for the National Geographic documentary explains, “virtually nothing was known about chimps in the wild” until “one woman went to where no man dared to go.” London-born Goodall went all the way to Gombe, Tanzania to live among chimps in a National Park. By her own admission, Goodall had “no idea of their brutality.” But it wasn’t just the chimps the trailblazer was up against.
“There were some who had tried to discredit my observations because I was a young, untrained girl,” the famed anthropologist says.
“‘Jane’ is the story of how Jane Goodall became Jane Goodall,” the doc’s official synopsis promises. The Brett Morgen-directed film includes footage shot by Goodall’s future husband Hugo van Lawick in the 1960s that was previously thought to be lost. Her incredible, groundbreaking interactions with chimps have been intercut with interviews with her in the present-day.
The UN Messenger of Peace is the founder of The Jane Goodall Institute, a wildlife and environmental conservation organization.
“Jane” made its world premiere earlier this month at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it received rapturous praise from critics. You can catch the film in theaters beginning October 20.
