Dereck Joubert	...	(Director)
Dereck Joubert	...	(Writer)
Dereck Joubert	...	Cinematographer
Susan Scott	...	Editor

Comments: There are far more statues of lions on this planet than there are real lions

The Jouberts are on another level when it comes to this stuff. A couple artistic souls who live in a tent on the Okavango Delta. They know the territory and the players

Dereck writes all the scripts. The struggle between his love for the animals and his sadness watching their massive population decline is palpable

This short film is a brilliant bit of storytelling. A PSA disguised as an exploration of the different ways male lions make it or break it

Starts off with ten adorable minutes of baby cubs play fighting, being adorable baby cubs. The girls bond for life. The boys bond to become a gang that will grow and leave, and possibly take over a pride of their own

Cut to a small pride where a single male adolescent is booted from the pride by papa. He's got no gang bros, but only one mouth to feed. Compare that to the large pride where several bros decide to leave, accompanied by a few sisters to help them hunt. I've never seen such extended footage of a group of lions starving to death through the dry season because they can't kill enough to feed so many mouths. They're literally skin and bones and just drop dead

Jeremy Irons does his best "One animal's death is another animal's life" narration when the hyenas move in

Switch to another large pride where the bros are sticking with the pride for too long. One of the lionesses has birthed three cubs out of sync with her sisters. She has to hide them and go off hunting on her own. While out on a solo hunt one day the teenage bros discover the cubs. This is the hardest section to watch. The adolescents don't kill them like an adult male would. They play with them. Brutally. Kick them. Lay their big bodies on them. Pick them up with their teeth and swing them about

Outnumbered and outsized the little ones still got attitude. Two of the cubs attempt an escape and fall down the side of a river bank. They are shown hanging on to a branch or vine for their lives. If it breaks, they're dead. You can see the life leaving their little bodies as they struggle to hang on. One gets his head wedged in branch

Mom comes home and in an odd twist it's the two cubs by the river who she can save. The other one not so much. It is lovely, however, to see this one mother stand up to seven of her big dick boys, who are all bigger than she is, and say "get the fuck out"

In the end, after exploring the ways different male lions fight the fight to become kings of their own, we see who the real king of beasts is ....

To the tune of about 600 per year (out of an estimated 3,000 left on earth) we see what happens, not to the losers or the weak but to the biggest and most beautiful and successful male lions

BANG

Summary: From award-winning filmmakers and National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert comes Game of Lions. According to Dereck Joubert, there are 20,000 lions left on Earth. Only 3,500 of those are males. We follow the journey of the lives of young males in the African bush and their potential to be king. From the birth of a male to his exile from his pride, our cameras follow along as males roam the jungles in an effort to spread their bloodlines through the kingdom.