African Cats

African Cats
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Alastair Fothergill Keith Scholey
Produced by	Alix Tidmarsh Keith Scholey
Narrated by	Samuel L. Jackson
Music by	Nicholas Hooper
Production company	Disneynature
Distributed by	Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Release date	April 22, 2011 (2011-04-22)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$5 million
Box office	$30.9 million

African Cats is a 2011 nature documentary film directed by Keith Scholey and Alastair Fothergill about a pride of lions and a family of cheetahs trying to survive on the African savannah. The film was released theatrically by Disneynature on Earth Day, April 22, 2011. The film is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson (Patrick Stewart in the UK release). A portion of the proceeds for the film were donated to the African Wildlife Foundation and their effort to preserve Kenya's Amboseli Wildlife Corridor. The film's initiative with the African Wildlife Foundation is named "See African Cats, Save the Savanna," and as of May 2, 2011, ticket sales translated into 50,000 acres of land saved in Kenya.

African Cats, referred to as a "true life adventure," tells the true story of two animal families living in the wild by using real-life footage. The film focuses on a young lion cub named Mara raised by her mother Layla, a mother cheetah named Sita who is raising five newborns, and Fang, the leader of Mara and Layla′s pride, defending his family from a banished lion named Kali. With so many species competing for space and food in the savanna, the animals must figure out what′s the best way to survive.

The film begins by introducing Sita, a cheetah who lives in the vast plains of the Maasai Mara National Reserve, in Kenya, and has just given birth to five cubs to take care of. Then we see Mara, a six-month-old lion cub, with her mother Layla, who both belong to the River pride, which lives in the south of the park. The pride′s leader is named Fang, an old male lion, who has a distinctive broken tooth because of an earlier fight. In the north of the Maasai Mara, Sita and her cubs coexist with another lion pride led by a large male named Kali, who wishes to expand his pride and territory by taking over Fang′s southern pride and territory, which however he cannot reach as the Pride Lands are divided by the crocodile infested river.