“The jaguar has the role of messenger”

Why did you choose to follow the jaguar trail for your documentary?

Thomas Yzèbe : What pushed me to become interested in the jaguar is that this animal is very present in the collective imagination. Culturally, it is a species that crosses the entire Amazon and is somewhat totemic in Guyana. This animal, which reigns over different environments, is one of the furthiest in the jungle and is almost fictional. Our ambition was not necessarily to film the jaguar but rather to film people who are in contact with the animal. Either because they are going to study it, or because they live next to its territory, or because they are subject to attacks from the jaguar. With these exchanges, the objective is to show the mirror that the jaguar holds up to us on our own lifestyles.

In your documentary, you address the subject of the difficulties linked to cohabitation with wildlife, in particular with the problem of predation of this big cat when it comes into contact with humans…

T. Y : This question of cohabitation involves questioning the border between human activity and wild life, and it arises everywhere. If jaguar predation is a subject that concerns Guyana more, this problem can also echo, in mainland France, the problems linked to cohabitation with other predators such as the wolf, which sometimes attacks herds.

In Cayenne, the proximity to wildlife is such that when you take a step, you are immersed in the Amazon because there is no peri-urban buffer zone. We immediately move from one environment to another.
The jaguar has a role of messenger through its presence in a garden or in livestock areas. He warns about the little space that the man leaves him. We clearly feel that there is predation on the jaguar which is ultimately man's predation on wild life.

What has this investigation taught you about this predator?

T. Y : The most enriching experience during our filming was meeting an Amerindian “knower” from the Teko tribe in the Camopi region who truly has cultural memory and wisdom in the connection with the living. This tribe who lives in villages is used to living and interacting with the jaguar, which never attacks them. The spirituality of this tribe is special because for them, if a jaguar attacks a man, it is because the jaguar has been possessed by the spirit of a shaman. So this means that behind the jaguar's violence hides a man with bad intentions. This spirituality profoundly changed my vision of the predator and perfectly echoes the question of the responsibility of men in the predation of the jaguar, which I address throughout the film.

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