‘Path of the Panther’ hits Florida theaters this week. We spoke with the film’s creators.

“The next chapter is up to us.”

Those are the phrases that flash throughout the display screen at the finish of Path of the Panther, an almost 90-minute movie documenting the plight of the endangered Florida panther — and the effort to create a wildlife hall to defend its habitat from growth.

After 5 years, half one million pictures and 800 hours of digital camera lure footage, acclaimed National Geographic Society photographer Carlton Ward, Jr. and Emmy-winning director Eric Bendick are releasing Path of the Panther into theaters throughout the state.

They hope by the finish of the movie, viewers will wish to assist write that subsequent chapter.

The documentary, government produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, offers a window into dwindling wild locations in Florida and serves as a automobile to construct help for the Florida Wildlife Corridor, a 17-million-acre community of land connecting wildlife by way of the state.

The movie options true emblems of the Florida spirit: indigenous folks, panther veterinarians, ranchers and conservationists — all totally different walks of life coming collectively in the combat to guard the elusive panther.

Below: Watch the trailer for ‘Path of the Panther’

Floridians can see Path of the Panther in theaters earlier than it releases on Disney+ and the National Geographic Channel this spring.

The movie is premiering in dozens of theaters across Florida starting this week. Ward and Bendick will lead a post-show dialogue at the Tampa Theatre after the opening night time screening Friday and once more on Sunday. They will host related Q&A occasions in Maitland and Gainesville.

Tickets for these occasions and different Florida showings may be bought at pathofthepanther.com/watch/

Ahead of the launch, the Tampa Bay Times spoke with Ward and Bendick about the movie. (The following dialog has been edited for readability and size.)

If there’s one message you hope the public – Floridian or in any other case – takes away from this movie, what would it not be?

CW: The complete objective of the movie is wanting to construct the public and political will to avoid wasting the Florida Wildlife Corridor. And that’s why I do this work. From an emotional standpoint, there’s no higher emblem of the Florida Wildlife Corridor than the panther, as a result of it’s a uniquely Florida animal. If we proceed to behave, we are able to save this hall and provides the panther a path to reclaim its territory.

EB: The biggest message the movie affords is that we’re in a second of change — proper now — the place there’s nonetheless a possibility, there’s nonetheless hope, and there’s nonetheless an actual potential to return wildness and shield wildness in Florida. I personally suppose it’s not too late.

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One of the most surprising photographs in the movie was the ranchers on horseback with rows of newly constructed houses in the background. Were there different moments when creating this movie while you felt the vulnerability of this remaining Florida wilderness?

CW: The vulnerability is true there all the time. At some of my best digital camera lure spots, should you pay attention carefully, you may hear the vehicles and the automobiles nonetheless buzzing down the highway whilst you’re standing in this primordial, wild place the place alligators, bears and panthers are nonetheless residing out their lives. The two worlds are stacked on high of one another.

What’s the greatest response to the movie you’ve heard to date?

CW: I sense so much of delight in Florida from folks in the viewers. And that’s tremendous uplifting. But there’s additionally so much shock and intrigue that this Florida nonetheless exists. And there’s now so much of motivation to assist.

EB: I all the time love when folks inform me that they had been moved to tears by the movie. It’s arduous to know should you’re making a distinction, however while you get to listen to that, you realize folks had been reacting emotionally.

What’s the largest lesson you realized as you created ‘Path of the Panther’?

CW: This movie clarified my objective. Once I understood the energy of the panther story to hold the Wildlife Corridor to much more Floridians, it was only a level of readability and a degree of hope — that if we may see this factor by way of, we may make a distinction.

EB: When you’re pursuing an animal as uncommon and elusive as the panther, you need to know that this is a undertaking that’s going to take over your life — for half a decade. Also the significance of working collectively as a workforce: It’s not only one particular person’s imaginative and prescient or one particular person’s concept. It’s all of our concepts.

What had been some of the largest hurdles you needed to clear to get the movie throughout the end line?

CW: For me, it was simply how lengthy it took to get sufficient content material. Before you may share the story with the hundreds of thousands of viewers of National Geographic or Disney+, you need to get sufficient content material. And you need to do this with an animal that I’ve solely ever seen thrice in my life in fleeting glimpses. It is totally reliant on digital camera traps. That was the hardest factor: The grind of the time spent. It was actually arduous for me, personally, to be away from my household that a lot.

EB: It’s not all the time the sexiest subject, however fundraising is a large half of making a characteristic movie. You’re consistently funding for that subsequent few months or, in our case, few years. Every hurdle alongside the manner you want extra sources. That was a giant problem for us, and we have now an enormous neighborhood of supporters to thank.

The last phrases of the movie are: “The next chapter is up to us.” What do you suppose comes subsequent for the Florida Wildlife Corridor? What boundaries exist in that subsequent chapter?

CW: We’re on an excellent trajectory. I feel year-after-year, our leaders will proceed to carry the Florida Wildlife Corridor as a excessive bipartisan precedence, as they’ve with the Everglades in recent times. So what’s subsequent? Continuing to make the hall a precedence to guard. We’re on the proper observe, and I hope that this story of the panther may help preserve us there. I feel the largest barrier is lack of consciousness. Once you’re conscious that these locations exist, it’s a logical response to wish to shield them.

EB: I see the Florida Wildlife Corridor as this big Central Park all through the complete state of Florida. Obviously it’s owned by many landowners and ranchers, but it surely could possibly be a mannequin for this large, protected space that may’t be was subdivisions. I feel if that occurs, it’s going to encourage an enormous motion throughout the complete United States.

What can our readers do to assist?

CW: The rapid factor is to inform different folks to look at the movie and to share this story. We need as many Floridians as potential to see this story, as a result of this is our Florida, and it’s a Florida that’s been ignored and forgotten for too lengthy. The subsequent can be to go to pathofthepanther.com and signal as much as be a part of the mailing checklist. We shall be following up with particular calls to motion from our accomplice organizations as they arrive up.

EB: For Florida residents, I’d say actually comply with alongside with the development of the Florida Wildlife Corridor and get entangled domestically. And the larger concept of the movie is absolutely about connectivity and related landscapes. Those may be something from small neighborhood parks, to the well being of your individual yard, to an area greenway. You can get entangled on so many various scales and create your individual inexperienced oases — even in the center of a metropolis.