Richard Reens
21 min| 2020 | US/Canada/South Africa | East Coast Premiere
A genocide survivor transcends overwhelming odds to become a master chimpanzee linguist. As the world’s chimpanzee population dwindles in the wild, one-man risks everything to care for a group of mistreated animals rescued by Jane Goodall’s Chimp Eden Sanctuary in South Africa. Stany Nyandwi, a survivor of the Burundi genocide, overcomes insurmountable odds to become one of the only humans to master the complicated ‘pant hoot’ chimp language. Recognizing that it’s not just a chimpanzee/human struggle, he’s taken it upon himself to reconnect with our closest relatives on this planet. Love knows no man-made boundaries in this universal story about understanding.