Brett Morgen is a successful filmmaker whose work includes documentaries on The Rolling Stones, Kurt Cobain and now the pioneering primatologist – Jane Goodall. The new film “JANE” draws from over 100 hours of never before seen footage that has been in National Geographic’s archive for over 50 years. Critics are calling it “one of the best documentaries of 2017”. When the National Geographic Society decided to make a movie from their most precious footage they went straight to Oscar-nominated director Brett Morgen. The brief seemed simple. National Geographic wanted to use never-before-seen colour film of legendary primatologist Jane Goodall in the field during her groundbreaking 1960s chimpanzee study. This lost archive captured Goodall, herself a past London Real guest, doing the work which would radically alter human understanding not just of ape society, but our own. National Geographic wanted to make a movie that paid homage to a pioneer in her field. But how did he do it? Brett joins us to explain the story of how a project he thought would never get anywhere became a surprise hit and powerful testament to arguably the most influential Englishwoman of our times.
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