She is small. A toto, Swahili for small. But this is not her most striking feature. As she turns her gaze on you, you will take a breath, because she has the brightest aquamarine eyes, and this is her story.  She was born under a safari camp tent in the Masai Mara in Kenya.  Her mother, Fig is the most attentive and graceful mothers teaching Toto every day but allowing her to make mistakes. She learns that when she grows up, she’ll also be able to kill a large gazelle but practices on a hare. She has something in her that drives her to experiment. If it moves, it’s fair game…until a porcupine calls her bluff.

Through the film, that covers her life over three years, she remains a small leopard and we can see the building blocks locking into place, one lesson learned sticks then another and finally, Toto is ready to make the transition to adulthood. Her mother, Fig, grooms her as a cub, plays with her all the way through this journey and today, Fig and Toto, share adjoining territories in two valleys in one of the most prey rich places on the planet. They play through an entire wildebeest migration into the dry period of less prey, and they play through that as well. Even at the age of 3 years old, already courting, they meet and play.  There have been few leopard stories like this told before where the character of an extraordinary cat is so evident. 

The film is another view into the world of big cats unveiled by Dereck and Beverly Joubert, National Geographic conservationists, filmmakers and explorers, shot on location in pristine 4K and often memorizing ultra high speed, with seldom before seen thermal night vision.

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