BBC Teams with Weinsteins for Wildlife Feature

LONDON, November 1: The
BBC Natural History Unit is teaming with BBC Films for its first theatrical project,
The Meerkats, which will be
co-financed and distributed internationally by The Weinstein Company.

The film is set to start
principal photography this month in the Kalahari Desert. It will be directed by
James Honeyborne, with Joe Oppenheimer and Trevor Ingman producing.

The film is being billed
as a “revealing and entertaining look at one family's daily struggle for
survival in the harshest environment on earth.”

"This is a
tremendously exciting collaboration," said David Thompson, the head of BBC
Films. "The Natural History Unit is the best in the world at what they do
and we're really thrilled to be working with them at last. The film has huge
emotional appeal and will really travel internationally. It's a great story,
with a fantastic team behind it, and we hope this will be the start of a great
partnership for the future."

Neil Nightingale, the head
of the BBC Natural History Unit, added, "With a strong and emotional
story, featuring some of the most charismatic of wildlife characters, this film,
The Meerkats, will appeal to a
very broad cinema audience, in Britain and around the world."