PREVIEW – Chimp Empire: Fascinating chimpanzee society(April 19, 2023)

Episode 3

In Ngogo, the chrysophyllum tree is gold. When these valuable figs are in fruit, the chimps are well-fed, with plenty of energy for hunting, mating – and aggression. As Hutcherson and the Westerners push deeper into Central territory to claim more fruit and the two tribes come face to face, alpha male Jackson must set aside old fears and lead his group into battle.

Episode 4

After a fierce battle, the Western border is quiet – but in these turbulent times, the war wages on. While some Central chimps resume their normal routines of grooming and playing, others know the politics of Ngogo never stop. Under cover of a storm that breaks across the forest, one tribe spots an opening, and in the resulting panic and confusion, everything will change.

Interview with Director James Reed 

Netflix: What drew you to this project?

James Reed, Director: Some years ago, I did a film about the Ngogo chimps and the scientists who study them [Rise of the Warrior Apes]. It tracked their story from when they were first discovered 25 years ago, and how the scientists learned about their unique qualities. Following that film, there was internal conflict between the chimps ruling the group, and they split into two distinct tribes. They didn’t contact each other at all, and whenever they met, it was hostile. The scientists who worked there were telling me all this news: “You won’t believe it, the Ngogo group has finally split. This is completely unprecedented. We have no idea what will happen now. Will they reunite? Will they go to war?” So at this point we’d reached an historic moment. The scientists felt like the next year or two was going to bring about a lot of change. It was going to be new for science, and it also provided a really unique opportunity to film a story about this amazing, dramatic situation in the forest.

Netflix: Who are these scientists who study the Ngogo groups? Were they involved in the film?

Reed: Professor John Mitani is the scientific consultant on the series. I’ve known him for years, and he was the one who provided the interface for us with the small group that works at Ngogo. There are about a dozen people who work with the chimps every day, and have done for years.

Netflix: When you say “work with the chimps every day,” what does that look like? What’s the day in the life of one of those scientists? Are the chimps aware of their presence?

Reed: The scientists basically live in a small camp in the middle of a very remote area in Uganda. There’s miles and miles of rainforest in every direction. There’s several camp shelters with tents underneath, in the middle of the Ngogo chimps’ territory. They absolutely know the scientists are there. And every day, the scientists and trackers go out first thing in the morning and find the chimps. Chimps make a lot of noise, so it’s usually fairly straightforward to find them. The difficulty is keeping up with them.

Netflix: So you and your crew fell in with these scientists, and followed their patterns?

Reed: Absolutely. It took them 25 years to reach the point where we can walk out and be near the chimps. We’re humans, so the chimps just see us as an extension of the presence that’s been in the forest for years – the scientists follow them with notepads, we follow them with camera equipment. We stay at a respectable distance, but close enough for them to be aware of us all the time. This was also the first time in history that two rival chimp groups, former allies, were equally habituated to a human presence. They could be filmed in detail, and documented in parallel. It took a collective leap of faith that we were entering what we knew was a dramatic and uncertain situation, and we had no idea which way this story was going to go.

Netflix: How does the presence of a camera crew impact the goings about of the chimps?

Reed: It’s very difficult to answer with certainty. You know that when you arrive, they certainly look at you, and they’re making an assessment. They know where you are, they’re maybe seeing whether they can recognize you. They definitely knew that we had different equipment, and whereas the chimp scientists might sit down with a notepad, we moved around looking for angles a little bit more. You can’t really spy on chimps. It’s not like being in a safari vehicle with a long lens on it. Because of the forest, if you’re not within 20 meters, you can’t even see them. So you have to announce yourself, and be present, and be in the group. There might be a little period each day where they’re like, Okay, you are all here. What’s going on? And then they just get on with their lives.

Netflix: Describe the feeling of walking into their space for the first time.

Reed: I remember suddenly being aware that the Ngogo chimps were all around. It’s like being on The Truman Show or something – you feel like you’re on a set, because you can’t quite

believe they’re real. They’re so human, you know that they’re assessing you in the same way that you are assessing them. You can’t quite believe that they accept you into their world. You go where they go, but they make all the decisions. The only thing you can control is where you point your cameras, or whether you keep up with the action. It’s quite humbling, and I quite like it. The only thing you can do is put yourself in the best position possible to record what they’re doing.

Netflix: How long was your prep and research, and how long was your filming process?

Reed: We stepped into the situation with a good understanding of the chimps and a strong relationship with John Mitani and the Ngogo scientists generally, so I think we probably got away with less prep time than another team might have required. Straight away, we had a shorthand. Our first shoot was in January of 2021, so we had about six months to prepare. A lot of that was just working out the teams and the camera equipment. The team was made up of unexpected choices in lots of ways. They all had experience in remote environments and are very talented in their own ways, but they weren’t the most experienced natural history camera people. What I tried to do was combine a range of different skills, give them autonomy for their own creativity in the field, and allow them to bring their own instincts to it. We were trying to get people who had the right personalities and the right instincts. From an editorial point of view, we understood that we really didn’t know what was going to happen, and the best thing we could possibly do was treat this as a true observational documentary and react to interesting storylines. We were there for over a year, filming with the chimps virtually every day. We also worked very closely with Ugandan field trackers – one of whom, Diana, shot really critical moments on the series for us, in periods when we were not able to be there. She knew the chimps better than we did, she was fitter than we were, and she sometimes got angles and behaviors that we were not able to get.

Netflix: What’s an example of something she got that your team perhaps couldn’t have gotten without her?

Reed: She took lightweight equipment, and because she knew the chimps and exactly where they were likely to move and go, she could predict their behavior better. Particularly in scenes of conflict, she was amazing at getting ahead of their movements. She also filmed some very intimate moments of character development. One of the best scenes we have of Christine, who is the nervous and protective mother to Baby Isobel, is this incredible moment where she and an adult male named Peterson are playing and tumbling around together. Diana was with her when that happened. We don’t know whether somehow maybe the chimps were slightly more relaxed when Diana was around, but she had a good eye and captured some really unique stuff for us.

Netflix: Shooting the battle scenes must have been terrifying, but also very emotional for everyone. You’re so invested in the lives of these chimps, and now they’re fighting to the death.

Reed: It was a strange emotion for everybody on the team, especially members of the camera crew who were right in the middle of some of these events. Part of you is wanting to see this drama, because it’s an important part of their lives. When it happened, though, we’d been immersed with this group for so long, we got to know them all individually and cared about them. We were trying to just observe and be detached, but you can’t help but become attached to some of these individual chimps and their personalities. When they started showing signs that they were going to go into conflict together, suddenly all these chimps that you’ve been hanging around with and covering the more mundane aspects of their life, their smaller personal goals – now they’re in this situation where someone could get killed. There’s so much adrenaline. The chimps are racing around in all directions – again, amazing that they’re sort of ignoring you, because they can see you, but you don’t play a part in this and they’re just focused on what they’re going to do.

Netflix: Was anyone on your crew ever tempted to intervene in those moments?

Reed: I completely understand why people ask that, but I think once you’ve filmed with these chimps for any amount of time, you understand how it’s not a practical option. There is nothing you could do. And you feel there’s nothing you should do, either, because as much as we might find it difficult to watch, this is a natural part of chimpanzee life and behavior. They are territorial animals, and they will fight for those territories.

Netflix: The whole series opens and closes with the question, “Who are we? How did we become the way that we are?” What did the chimps teach you about that? How do you want people to approach this so as to glean lessons for themselves?

Reed: I don’t think it’s for me to say. That sounds like a bit of a copout, but it’s very personal. I would be delighted if people identified with different aspects of the series as a choose-your-own-adventure sort of thing. Within the Ngogo society, there’s loads that you can distance yourself from and just observe with intrigue, but there are also characters that will touch people on different levels. Straight away, you have a diverse range of personalities. We can see equivalence in humans that we know – and we can see characteristics of ourselves in the different chimps. Some of those we may like, and some we may dislike. That’s why we aimed not to provide any sort of a conclusion. It’s up to the viewer, really. In seeing

familiar story types in a very unfamiliar world, I think there is a lot of thought to be provoked about how we get along together. Are we better than chimps in resolving conflicts? When are we actually just as bad? When are they better? As a species, how far have we come?

Netflix: With this series following on the heels of My Octopus Teacher, you’re getting quite a lot of experience in using animals to teach us about humanity. Why do you think this genre is so appealing? Why is it sometimes easier to learn by watching animals than by watching ourselves?

Reed: Hopefully – not just for this series, but the genre, generally – people can gain something from just understanding animals for their own sake. They shouldn’t just be a way to look at ourselves. That would seem a shame. But humans use metaphor and analogy in order to explain things. We make those associations, and with chimps it’s particularly interesting, because they are so close to us. Somehow, without all the trappings of modern life, you can see things in chimps which are more pure and less self-conscious.

Netflix: People will be invested in the lives of these chimps after watching the series. Is there a way to keep up with them beyond these four episodes?

Reed: We captured this moment, but the Ngogo scientists are following these stories all the time. They continue to document those life stories, and they have a Facebook page, so the stories are readily available online, actually. Not in as much detail, but they do give regular updates on major things that happen. There’s news about new Alphas and all sorts of things that have happened since. But we should probably do a Chimp Empire Season Two.

• All materials including the Director’s interview are courtesy Netflix.