CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Eye of the Leopard

2006 nature documentary film

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 7, 2026
Entity authorityQ3495310 ↗
Source-derived summary

Eye of the Leopard is a 2006 National Geographic documentary directed by Dereck and Beverly Joubert. Set in the Mombo region of the Okavango Delta, Botswana, the film explores the life of a female leopard, Legadema, as she matures from a cub to an adult. Jeremy Irons, voice actor of Scar from Disney's 1994 animation The Lion King, narrates the film. It premiered in the US on the National Geographic Channel on October 8, 2006, and has won many awards including the BBC wildscreen Panda award for Best Sound Wild Screen and an Emmy. Since the success of the film, a book and an app of the same title have been released.

Synopsis

The film follows the journey of leopardess Legadema over the course of three years. Unlike the standard nature documentary, Eye of the Leopard pieces together a series of flashbacks, covering the major events from her childhood all the way to adulthood[2]. These flashbacks reveal her experiences of near-escapes from predators as well as her observations of her mother's hunting skills. Ultimately, each memory shapes her own present-day hunting and survival skills.

At 8 days

Legadema, meaning "light of the sky" in Setswana, is introduced as an eight-day-old cub with a distinctive birthmark feature.

Editorial summary

“Eye of the Leopard” enters the record as 2006 nature documentary film. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Leopard, nature and documentary can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2006, 1994—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2006-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Leopard, nature and documentary.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Eye of the Leopard” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Leopard, nature and documentary provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3495310. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006 and 1994.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Eye of the Leopard”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Eye of the Leopard primary sources, Eye of the Leopard archive and Leopard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Eye of the Leopard”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Eye of the Leopard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.