Hopefully!

According to Greek legend, Pandora is the first woman on earth. The legend says that she receives a present from the gods and she was told never to open. Incited by her curiosity, Pandora opened it and all evil contained in the box spread over the earth. There was one thing that lay at the bottom: hope. Although it took time to scientists to accept that human beings come from Africa, we all know that it is humanity’s origin. If I were to locate Pandora’s box in somewhere on earth, I will definitely chose Africa. Because hope and  the beginning are actually there.

From savannas to dense forest, all landscapes of Africa are full of rich diversity. Africa is the habitat to many singular species and there is a curious relation to discover between animals and vegetation. Absolutely, in this place there are wildlife vestiges and the remains of human nature. Africa - Eye to eye with the unknown is a new David Attenborough’s series (2013) filmed over four years around the entire continent. The documentary is a travel to places like the mysterious circles in the Kalahari, giant-gentle giraffes fights, monkeys and snakes inhabit in the dark, the African micro-world and the maternity of shoebills in Zambia. Besides, Attenborough comes face-to-face with a baby rhino along this adventure.

The series are rather an exploration of multiplicity African experience. From the Atlas Mountains to the Cape of Good Hope, Kalahari and Namib deserts and from the jungles of the Congo to Atlantic Ocean. All of these film aims to strike a balance between what people know and what people ignore about a significant part of Africa’s history and stories. Despite of the connection that is obviously linking the whole world, there is a worrying disengagement of knowledge about Africa. Related to this, the final programme is about environmental problems affecting Africa’s natural world and it also demonstrates the work of conservationists across the continent.    

Africa is a clearly concern about the current circumstances of the country and, finally, about the conflict between civilization and wildlife all over the world. However, the film is above all a combination of human life’s origin and hope: along the animal populations emerges the assortment of freedom and wild that Africa is full of.