Alan Root's Films

The Year of the Wildebeest

Alan Root spent two years following the great Serengeti migration to make what has been described as the definitive film about the world’s most spectacular wild-life show. They start on the open plains where, over a couple of weeks, more than half a million calves are born – able to stand in minutes, and run within half an hour. Then the great herds move off the plains into the bush country, where many predators await their arrival. Lions, leopards, cheetahs and hyenas take their toll. In one sequence the great herds walk across a shallow lake, but the young calves have to swim and in three days of complete chaos some three thousand calves either drown or get lost and die. When the herds come to drink on the Grumeti river huge crocodiles are ready for them. Bush fires rob them of food and when they move north in search of grazing they have to swim swollen rivers, where hundreds die in the crossings. Finally, the herds head south back to the open plains, where they will give birth before starting the whole cycle over again.

Castles of Clay

Nominated for an ‘Oscar’ this film takes us inside the great termite mounds that are such a feature of the African landscape. There we see the extraordinary architecture and society of the tiny, blind creatures who build these mounds, and the strange collection of creatures that share them. Deep inside a fortified chamber the queen, a four-inch long sausage thick as a man’s thumb, pumps out 30,000 eggs a day, to be cared for by her millions of sterile workers and soldiers. The mounds have gardens where mushrooms are grown and tended, and air-conditioning systems whose chimneys provide homes for many creatures, from spitting cobras and giant lizards (who are seen fighting to the death) to mongooses, elephant-shrews and birds. Feeding on termites are some of Africa’s strangest creatures, the scaly pangolin – looking ‘like a clockwork artichoke’ and the aardvark, who rips open a mound to feed and so enables army ants to enter and over-run the termites.

Kopjes: Islands in a Sea of Grass

The word Kopje means ‘little head’ in Afrikaans and is a rather paltry description of the great, rounded, boulders that rise above the Serengeti plain. Tens of millions of years ago molten granite pushed up below the surface of softer rocks which have since eroded away, leaving spectacular tumbled piles of giant boulders. Like islands in a sea of grass kopjes attract a host of specialised creatures. Bats and tortoises that are flattened so that they can hide in cracks – and a bird of prey with double-jointed legs designed for winkling them out. The caracal, a tawny cat that leaps six feet high to capture pigeons in mid air, the agama lizard that jumps to catch flies off a sleeping lion’s head, and the spectacular black eagle that swoops out of the blue to snatch hyrax to carry off to feed it’s chicks. An extraordinary ensemble of creatures that call these granite islands home.

Here Be Dragons

In the 70’s Alan Root was the first to observe and film the mayhem that takes place every year in a series of pools along the Grumeti river in the Serengeti, when the herds of wildebeest come down to drink. A decade later he and his disciples Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone returned to film in depth the huge crocodiles that haunt these pools, and the daily price that the wildebeest must pay in order that some may drink. The scenes of tension as the crocs move almost imperceptibly closer to the drinking animals followed by the explosive attack as one rears up to grab an animal by the head are the dramatic highlights of the film, but the story is rounded out by the crocs fascinating nesting behaviour and all the other creatures that share their lives. The monitor lizards and mongoose who dig up and eat the eggs, the plover that nests right next to where those eggs are buried and benefits from the female croc’s protection. The gentle way the mother croc carries the hatchlings down to the water in her fearsome jaws, all new and dramatic footage.

A Season in the Sun

The rainy seasons in East Africa last just a couple of months, and when the sun comes out again, water-holes, rivers, and even lakes shrink and some dry out completely. This is the story of how many creatures, from elephants to mice, cope with that long, hot Season in the Sun. Frogs, snails and even some fish bury themselves in the drying mud and there they wait in ‘summer sleep’ for months, or even years, for the next rains. The sand-grouse male carries water to it’s chicks in special absorbent breast feathers, the pygmy mouse places tiny pebbles at the entrance to it’s burrow which collect a few drops of dew, and elephants dig several feet down into dry river-beds to slowly suck up the large amounts that they need. When a large lake dried out there are dramatic scenes of hundreds of hippos sharing the last muddy pools with many thousands of 4 foot catfish. Finally the rains come, and the buried frogs and fish emerge to breed in many amazing ways, and elephants are up to their eyes in flowers.

Garamba: The Impossible Elephants

A commonly held belief is that only the Indian elephant has been domesticated and trained to serve man, and that the African species could not be tamed. This film tells of an extraordinary venture that took place deep in the heart of Africa over a hundred years ago. The King of Belgium, who ‘owned’ the vast Congo as a personal plaything, decided to have some African elephants trained, and his dream came true in a wild place called Garamba. Old black and white footage shows muscular Azande tribesmen chasing elephants, getting ropes around their legs and anchoring them to trees. They were trained and put to good use pulling ploughs and great covered wagons, but with the advent of 4 wheel drive vehicles and tractors they became obsolete and the trained animals slowly died out. Then in 1984, when there were still four old trained elephants left alive a young zoologist, Kes Hillman Smith arrived to study the last white rhinos there, and she and her husband Fraser began to rebuild the park, and to rehabilitate the old elephants in the hope of earning revenue for the park with elephant-back safaris. The story of their struggle is one of hope, vision and courage in the face of great odds.

Heart of Brightness

Deep in the heart of the Congo rainforest wildlife researchers Terese and John Hart join with a group of Mbuti pygmies to track down the Okapi, the rare forest giraffe. Combining technology with age-old hunting and trapping skills they slowly open the book on this elusive and little known creature. Join the pygmies as they leave their forest camp to set their long nets to capture antelope – for both research and the pot – as they dance to welcome the coming of the ‘honey time’ and climb a hundred feet up a giant forest tree to raid a bee’s nest. When a leopard kills one of the Hart’s collared okapis it is driven off it’s kill by a group of chimpanzees, drumming their feet on buttress roots to add to their screaming threats. A penetrating look at a disappearing world.

The Legend of the Lightning Bird

The Hamerkop or hammer headed stork is a drab, mud-brown, foot high bird that would appear not to have a lot going for it. But it’s gigantic nest and strange habits give this bird legendary status in many African tribes as a witch doctor, a bringer of rain, and the King of the birds. They spend weeks building a stick nest the size of an armchair, hollow inside with a heavy roof and small entrance, and often build two or more before they are satisfied and move in. Other birds move into the unused nests, Egyptian geese, grey kestrels and owls – genet cats search for eggs, and a huge python comes looking for nestlings - all are seen as followers of the King. But the hamerkop’s habit of decorating the roof of its’ nest with witch doctors paraphernalia is what attracts the superstitious. Collecting big feathers, bones, porcupine quills, and most importantly, wildebeest tails, the witchdoctor’s traditional fly whisk, the hamerkop is respected - and sometimes feared - right across Africa.

Mzima: Portrait of a Spring

In the dry red dust of Kenya’s Tsavo National Park a million gallons an hour of crystal clear water burst from the base of an old black lava flow, to run a couple of miles through a series of pools, and then sink back below a wall of rock. This is Mzima, and it’s clear waters provide a home in the semi-desert for a great web of aquatic life that is based on the group of twenty hippos that live here. Their dung fertilises the otherwise pure water and supports insects and crustaceans that in turn feed fish and water-birds, snakes, terrapins and crocodiles. Alan Root tried several schemes to get his underwater shots in relative safety, finally deciding that the only way was to put on some goggles and get into the water. His underwater sequences of otters playing, hippos ‘moonwalking’ weightlessly through the clear water, and crocodiles feeding on an antelope were great wildlife ‘firsts’ for this renowned film.

Queen of the Beasts

In folklore and fable the lion is hailed as the King of the Beasts. With his great mane and regal bearing he is treated with respect and deference by both man and beast. But his main role is as temporary consort and protector of the lionesses, who are the possessors of the territory - and the real, on-going monarchs. When a male becomes too old to carry out his role he will be forced out by younger males, and usually the pride they take over includes some young cubs. The new males cannot afford to spend time rearing another male’s offspring. They have one overwhelming imperative – they must kill the cubs, which they do with brutal speed. In this unique and wrenching sequence we follow as the bereaved lionesses accept the situation, and within twenty four hours come into season and mate with their new consorts.

Safari by Balloon

Join in an exciting and unrepeatable safari as Alan Root learns to fly the first hot-air balloon to come to Africa, then takes it on a series of crazy flights filming wildlife over Kenya’s National Parks. The adventurers sink in Lake Naivasha, then move on to film rhino and elephant in the balloon-unfriendly thornbush and lava flows of Tsavo Park and Amboseli. They fly over the great wildebeest migration, where a lion chases and pulls on their trail rope. After landing in thick forest the only way to recover the balloon is by inflatable boat down the Mara river, where they run the gauntlet of many hippo and are attacked, punctured and almost sunk by an elephant. When they are again stranded after landing in a rocky area near Amboseli the rolled-up balloon is carried out by a party of Maasai warriors, whose reward is a riotous ride in which they leap from a moving vehicle into the basket. Finally, Alan cannot resist the challenge of Africa’s highest mountain, 19,000 ft high Kilimanjaro and he and his wife Joan become the first to balloon over it’s snowy crown.

Serengeti Jigsaw

Simply put, the great pyramid of life on the Serengeti has vegetation as it’s wide base, then moves up a layer to the various herbivores, from grasshoppers to rhinos, and at the apex are the predators, from falcon to lion. The Serengeti, one of the most productive ecosystems on earth, is best known for the great annual migration of some 1.3 million wildebeest. But there are another 1.5 million other large species, zebras, gazelles, antelope, giraffe, buffalos, hippos and elephants, preyed upon by the highest concentration of large predators on earth. From the many and varied grasses and trees, to the great panoply of herbivores and on to Africa’s widest selection of carnivores great and small, we see how all these elements have their place on that pyramid, while also fitting into an intricate jigsaw that positions the competing or complimentary needs of all species into an extraordinarily complex puzzle, which this film artfully brings to life.

Sunlight and Shadow: The Dappled Cats

Africa’s two spotted cats, the cheetah and the leopard, have different social systems, hunting techniques, and very different behaviour patterns. The cheetah prefers daylight on the open, sunlit plains, while the leopard prefers thick bush, dusk and darkness. Superficially alike, they are as different as sunlight and shadow. The film shows the cheetah’s high speed hunts, their macabre fights, which have no behaviour to signal surrender, their violent breeding behaviour in which the female is badly beaten up, and the way that they back down in the face of threats from other species, not wanting to risk a wound that would make hunting impossible. The leopard is a very different, a bruiser who hunts by stealth, is at home raiding suburban gardens for chickens and dogs, overturning dustbins, and is fearless in the face of enemies – even one up against fifty baboons. The elegant cheetah and the brawling leopard – sunlight and shadow? How about the lady and the tramp?

A Space in the Heart of Africa

When a tree falls in the rainforest it tears a hole in the canopy, and sunlight streams in to encourage plants and trees to fill the gap. But elephants feed on those plants, keep the trees down and the space open and so a richer place for a host of other creatures. Visiting those clearings are buffalo, bongo and bushbuck, and in the surrounding forest some of the rarest animals of the Congo – okapi, that forest giraffe, the fish-eating aquatic genet, not seen alive before this film was made, and the chevrotain, a small antelope that, to hide from a hunting crowned eagle, dives in and walks under water on the bottom of a forest stream.

Two in the Bush

Alan and Joan Root are considered to be one of the best wildlife film-making teams of all time. David Attenborough has said “Alan, almost single-handedly in my opinion, made wildlife films grow up.” In his sixty years in Africa has been bitten, and lost a finger, to a deadly puff adder, and been mauled by a hippo, a gorilla, and a leopard. This film revisits some of their most renowned sequences, filming the extraordinary goings-on inside a hornbill’s sealed nest, the strange life in a termite mound, and going underwater in a crystal clear spring with hippos and crocodiles. We see how they filmed slow-motion close-ups of a cobra spitting it’s venom – the target was Joan’s face – the night sequence of a termite hatch, with their lights exploding in a sudden storm, and the madcap high-speed chase as Maasai warriors leap from a moving land-rover into the basket of Alan’s hot-air balloon. This is a ‘how it was done’ film from a time before the coming of the technology that enables great nature films today, back when inventiveness and courage made possible some of wildlife film’s most memorable moments.

Virunga: Rivers of Fire and Ice

Virunga National Park in the Congo was Africa’s first National Park and is the most spectacular and varied on the continent. From the glaciers and strange vegetation of the Mountains of the Moon, down through rain forest and savannah to active volcanos at the park’s southern end this is an extraordinary journey. Every step along the way has strange new creatures, the vegetarian palm-nut vulture, the tiny swift that glues it’s tiny eggs to a vertical pad stuck in turn to a waving palm frond. Then on to the active volcanos and the strange “mazukus”, where carbon dioxide seeps from the earth and kills everything that comes within range. And finally mountain gorillas, and a group that are spell-bound by a chameleon. A trip down this park is an extraordinary experience.

Alan Root was one of the great wildlife film-making pioneers. His unmatched experience of East African wildlife and appetite for risk made him a world-class naturalist and filmmaker.

"Dusty Feathers and Unlikely Fingers" is an updated version of Alan's 2012 autobiography "Ivory, Apes & Peacocks". Alan enhanced and finalized his story in 2017 prior to his death. Additional photographs and film clips are included in this story of his life's work; from his arrival in Kenya as a young boy to the making of his game-changing films.

In this extraordinary memoir we look at Africa's wonders through the eyes of a visionary, we live through hair-raising adventure and personal sorrow, and also bear witness to a natural world now largely lost from view.

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