Autumn and the Black Jaguar Review – Charming, A Feel-Good Family Friendly Film
- Details
- Category: Indies, Docs, Foreign Film
- Published on Tuesday, 14 January 2025 10:21
- Written by Janet Walker
Autumn and the Black Jaguar, from Blue Fox Entertainment, presents a heartwarming story as a young teen returns to her Amazon Rain Forest childhood home to find her pet beloved pet jaguar that is being hunted by animal traffickers.
The film begins in the Amazon forest, with Ore, played by Wayne Charles Baker, a trial chief, writing a letter, and through voice over we understand he is deeply connected to the person in the letter. The next scene pivots to a sleeping teenager, Autumn, played by Lumi Pollack, who is having a nightmare and wakes up calling the name of Hope. She tries to explain to her dad, Saul, played by Paul Greene, who is reading the letter, that something is wrong with Hope.
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Autumn is an animal activist, and as she explains to her father tomorrow is biology and her teacher, Anja, played by Emily Bett Rickards, is making them dissect frogs. Autumn decides it is the perfect day for a protest, calls the ASPCA, and she is sent to the principal's office, and unfurls Animal Activists' banners and is permanently suspended. She is being sent to live with her grandmother.
While she is packing, she reads the letter from Ore, who explains the poachers have encroached further into the Amazon Rainforest and the jaguar is in danger. Through flashbacks we see Autumn as a child, played by Airam Camacho, living in the Amazon Rainforest with her parents, and we hear a gunshot. Autumn is chasing a butterfly, and a jaguar cub, now motherless, is wondering about. The two meet, and the bond is formed. She names the cub Hope, and we see each of them growing. When Autumn's mother is killed, they release Hope into the forest and leave one jungle for another settling in Manhattan.
Once Autumn realizes Hope is in trouble she decides to return to the Amazon. She stops by her school to pick up her phone. As her teacher attempts to figure out what Autumn is up to, she discovers she is on her way to the Amazon. And in a move that changes her life, she follows her.
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Throughout the journey, Anja, who is book smart about the Amazon, and yet has no practical skills. She is a fish out of water, trying to be the adult to a determined child, who has set her course to find Hope and save her life.
As the pair finally reach the village, we also learn from Ore, the predators of the forest are not only exotic animal traffickers. Using stones as visual aids, he explains drug traffickers, are the biggest problem in the Amazon, followed by arms smugglers, and the third largest problem the Amazon Rainforest faces are the exotic animal traffickers, who hunt for private collectors worldwide. They pay local villagers' pennies on the dollar, to trap and hunt the small and large game animals as well as exotic birds, reptiles, spiders and others depleting the Amazon of part of the ecosystem that keep the world alive.
What follows is the journey of a lifetime, with Anja and Autumn following Hope through the Amazon Rain Forest, as she leads them to the home base for the poachers. Throughout, they each learn about themselves, and about each other.
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Uplifting and inspiring, Autumn and the Black Jaguar is an encouraging, feel-good family friendly film with stunning cinematography, sweeping forest vistas, and celebrates the beauty of nature.
Throughout the majority of the film, each of the actors hold to the character, Emily Bett Rickards, who plays Anja, has the most obvious character arc as she begins her journey as a charming, fumbling, yet unprepared, book smart biology teacher, slowly she is able to adapt and tackle the challenges. Lumi Pollack, as Autumn, remains determined, committed, and with authenticity projects the strongminded and resolute teenager.
Delightful, and compelling, Autumn and the Black Jaguar opens in theaters nationwide Friday, January 17, 2025. This is one film audiences should watch until the very end.
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Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Runtime: 100 minutes.
Director: Gilles de Maistre.
Producer: Catherine Camborde, Gilles de Maistre, Marco Colombo, Mattia Della Puppa, Sylvain Prouix, Jonathan Vangar.
Executive Producer: Mark Stine, Nicole Soriano, Carole Vaillancourt.
Written by: Prune de Maistre.
Starring: Lumi Pollack, Emily Bett Rickards, Paul Greene, Wayne Charles Baker, Kelly Hope Taylor, Lucrezia Pini, Airam Camacho, Lucrezia Pini, Pablo Vinos, Eva Avila, Angele Galuppo, Jean Alex Delva, Satine Scarlett Montaz, K.C. Coombs, Leisa Reid, Alison Brookes, Sergio Reyes, Juan Carlos Pontigo, Jorge Chuc, Charlie Vachon.
Janet Walker is the publisher, founder, and sole owner of Haute-Lifestyle.com. A graduate of New York University, she has been covering international news through the Beltway Insider, a weekly review of the nation's top stories, for more than a decade. A general beat writer/reporter and entertainment/film critic, she is also an accomplished news/investigative news/crime reporter and submitted for Pulitzer Prize consideration "Cops Conspire to Deep Six Sex Assaults" in the Breaking News Category and was persuaded to withdraw the submission. Ms. Walker has completed five screenplays, "The Six Sides of Truth," "The Assassins of Fifth Avenue," "The Wednesday Killer," "The Manhattan Project," and the sci-fi thriller "Project 13: The Last Day." She is completing the non-fiction narrative, "Unholy Alliances: A True Crime Story," which is expected to be released in early 2025. She is a member of the Los Angeles Press Club, the National Writers Union, and a former member of the International Federation of Journalists.
