Primate Cinema: Apes as Family

Directed by Rachel Mayeri

Primate Cinema: Apes as Family is the premiere of a drama made expressly for chimps to an actual chimpanzee audience. Like people, chimps are fascinated by television. But until Apes as Family, no filmmaker had made a film to appeal to two ape species. This film contains all the primate dramas-around sex, food, territory, and politics. The movie follows an urban chimp into her home and what happens when she meets a bunch of wild strangers. The chimpanzees watching on televisions installed at the Edinburgh Zoo were a curious, and at times, rowdy bunch.