The Woman Who Loves Giraffes – April 13-19

2019 | Canada | 82 mins |

In 1956, four years before Jane Goodall ventured into the world of chimpanzees and seven years before Dian Fossey left to work with mountain gorillas, 23-year-old biologist Anne Innis Dagg made an unprecedented solo journey to South Africa to study giraffes in the wild. When she returned home a year later, the insurmountable barriers she faced as a female scientist proved hard to overcome. In The Woman Who Loves Giraffes, Anne (now 86) retraces her steps, offering an intimate window into her life as a young woman, juxtaposed with a first-hand look at the devastating reality that giraffes are facing today.

“This warm documentary uses one woman’s singular passion to fuel a tale of zoological discovery, blatant sexism and environmental alarm… Her unmitigated joy is the movie’s secret sauce… When we see this remarkable woman, once overlooked and uncelebrated, return to the scene of her pioneering research, it’s clear she’s finally back where she belongs.”
—Jeannette Catsoulis, THE NEW YORK TIMES