Big Dream Little Bears gives a rare glimpse into the mysterious island of Borneo and an insiderâs view of a ten-year dream to save the smallest bears on earth. Director Howard Jackson.
Sun Bears are the smallest, least studied and most endangered bears on the planet. Siem te Wong has been on a ten year mission to save these bears on the remote and mysterious island of Borneo. With a sweet and very intimate narrative, this film follows his attempts to reintroduce a group of bears into the wild. A dramatic encounter with these rare, elusive animals and a fascinating insight into the challenges of conservation.
"This little bear", Wong points to his t-shirt, "everyone calls her little one... Two months after I took that picture she was killed". His voice trembles into a whimper. "And I said to myself, I'm going to tell the story". Since that moment Wong has devoted his life to saving Sun Bears from extinction. And now ten years of work is coming to fruition with his project to reintroduce captive Sun Bears into the wild.
All the bears share a similar story of disappearing forests and mothers killed. The lucky ones are rescued and brought to this sanctuary. Poachers hunt them for illegal pet trade, so-called medicines, and for their human like feet to be served as a delicacy.
As Wong says, "Big dreams begin with baby steps". The first step: to release the 12 rescue bears into a fenced forest, a home, finally comes. This is no easy task; they haven't touched soil for over 6 years. To add to it, the "bear crew" experts are on a tight schedule. With new hurdles arising constantly, crew-members slowly dwindle and it looks like the project may be under threat.
Despite their efforts, day after day the team wait for the reluctant bears to leave their enclosure. But then Suria, the smallest and youngest bear, takes the first little steps out into the sunshine and makes a dream come true for Wong. Although desolation in Borneo is huge, this film and Wong's dream offers new hope for conservation efforts everywhere.
The first ever shots of a Bornean clouded leopard with its prey - a long tail macaque. This is what field work in the jungles of Borneo is all about. To top it off, the film has been selected to screen at the New York wildlife conservation film festival and the Australian Festival of Science films.
Big Dream Little Bears at the Al Jazeera Film Festival, Doha Qatar 19 April 2013 at the Doha Sheraton. Howard Jackson will be attending the festival in Doha, QATAR, courtesy of Al Jazeera.
Director: Howard Jackson. Narrator: Dr Audrey Low.
Big Dream Little Bears gives a rare glimpse into the mysterious island of Borneo and an insiderâs view of a ten-year dream to save the smallest bears on earth. In a story laced with humor and filled with urgency, Borneo specialist, Dr Audrey Low, returns to her former homeland to assist sun bear expert Siew Te Wong in the most dangerous and unpredictable phase his dream.
Big Dream Little Bears follows Audreyâs journey of rediscovery, Wongâs indefatigable dream and Suria, the youngest and smallest bear, who although ostracized and wounded by the other bears, survives to lead them to freedom. Big Dream Little Bears reaffirms there is hope in the small but significant victories of individuals.â¨
Big Dream Little Bears Fundraiser Day in Sandakan, Sabah, Borneo, July 20, 2013.
Nearly RM$500,000 raised to support the work of the Bornean Sun Bears Conservation Centre from extinction. Full press coverage and screening to 500 local school children.
AL JAZEERA International Documentary Film Festival, DOHA, QATAR, 2013Â
NEW YORK Wildlife Conservation Film Festival, October 2013Â
PORTOBELLO Film Festival, LONDON Notting Hill, August, 2013.
CULTURE UNPLUGGED, LINKTV, San Francisco. 2013.
SINGAPORE Endeavours Film Festival, Nominated BEST ASIAN DOCUMENTARY, May 2013.
AUROVILLE Film Festival, Pondicherry, India, September 2013.
âTEDx, Kuala Lumpurâ Film Launch, 2012 on TEDX by Siew Te Wong.
âOfficial Selectionâ - SCINEMA â CSIRO Australian Science Film Festival, August, 2012, 2013 (Clouded Leopard Kill)
(SCINEMA TRAVELLING Film Festival - screening in 400 venues across Australia, and 20 countries, in 2012, 2013 as part of National Science Week.)
âOfficial Selectionâ - ATOM AWARDS â Australia - 2012. Finalist BEST CHILDREN'S FACTUAL
âOfficial Selectionâ - KLEFF â Kuala Lumpur Eco Film Festival, 2012, 2013 MAPKL, PUBLIKA.
âOfficial Selectionâ World Kids International Film Festival, Mumbai, India.
(2012 - touring Mumbai for one year.)
Dr Audrey Low and Howard Jackson wanted to create a Malaysian film about Malaysian environmental concerns championed by Malaysian. â Picture by Choo Choy May
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 14 â Do you know that the Bornean sun bear is the worldâs smallest bear and it is now facing the threat of extinction due to poaching, attacks from other wildlife, loss of habitat and more? Little is known about the Bornean sun bear, which is a sub species of the Malayan sun bear.Â
That is why Wong Siew Te, a Malaysian wildlife biologist, started the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre three years ago to rescue orphaned bears, nurse them to health and eventually release them back into the wild.Â
To create awareness about sun bears, director Howard Jackson and producer Dr Audrey Low got in touch with Wong and went to Sabah in 2010 to film a nonprofit documentary about these creatures.Â
Thus, the film âBig Dreams, Little Bearsâ came about and it has been screened in more than 400 venues in international film festivals, including childrenâs festivals.Â
Today the film will be screened at the 5th Kuala Lumpur Eco Film Festival at the Experimental Theatre at University Malaya where six international film makers will be premiering their work. It will be a weekend of award-winning films, exciting workshops for youth and communities, performances by local musicians and an eco-fashion show. The Malaysian Insider had an opportunity to speak to Jackson and Low about the inspiring film and the experience of being up close with the endangered species.Â
Malaysian-born Low has a doctorate in art and anthropology specialising in the Iban people of Sarawak. Despite spending years abroad, she is still very Malaysian at heart and that is why Jackson and Low decided to do a documentary of Malaysian conservation efforts by Malaysians.Â
âThe biggest problem is that nobodyâs ever heard of them. Even people in Sabah have not heard about the Bornean sun bear. Since they have never heard of them, they canât care so we thought thatâs one thing we can help. And to present it to a Malaysian audience rather than to aim at a Western audience where people are waving fingers. Say, okay, this is an uplifting story, here is one of your countryman working very hard for you over there, hardly credentialed, you donât even know heâs there so here he is,â said Jackson on why they decided to do the project.Â
Jackson teaches screen writing, has a production background and has done nature documentaries internationally. He also does film projects on global environment for the Australian government. The multi-talented director not only directed, edited and shot the film, he also did the music score and basically lugged around heavy equipment in the jungles of Sepilok, Sabah.Â
âI produce and narrate and do a bit of marketing and stuff. Howard does the directing, the camera, sound editing, music, titles. So between us, Howard does the bulk of the film part. Between us, we play every role. Making up names for the credits because they were a little bit too short,â joked Low.Â
Itâs not a walk in the park, trying to film the documentary when youâve got orang utans, snakes, leeches, mosquitoes and other animals to worry about.Â
âWho can forget the cute little mosquitoes, cute little leech, all those cute things,â Jackson mused, cracking us up.
Howard Jackson, Director of Big Dreams Little Bears find mosquitoes and leeches âcuteâ. â Picture by Choo Choy May
Jackson couldnât leave his bag on the floor even for a minute because the orang utans are intelligent creatures. There were incidents where they would find the orang utans opening up the fridge, taking the food, closing the door of the fridge and then running away with the food.Â
People would be wondering why their bottled drinks looked like someone has drunk from them. And then they realised that it was the orang utan that twisted open the cap, drank some of it and closed the cap without anyone realising it.Â
All these memorable incidents made filming fun for both Jackson and Low who spent a total of five weeks filming in Sabah and three weeks filming in Australia.Â
So what was the experience like, filming the seemingly adorable Bornean sun bears?Â
âIt is slowly getting into the psyche that sun bears exist. But when we were in Sabah, when we talked about sun bears they thought we were talking about American bears, the big bears that were imported into the zoo. But we said, no, itâs your own bear. Itâs not surprising because when you go into the jungle, you canât see as far as this table. You think about all the documentaries you see. Penguins, lions, bears â you think about all those animals.Â
âAll of those animals are really easy to find, very easy to film. When you get an animal that just disappeared behind us, a little bit of shadow, and you got a big camera you are trying to drag through the jungle, it is not financially viable. So that could be one of the reasons too, you canât find them,â said Jackson.Â
Currently, the orphaned sun bears are kept within a contained jungle with electric fence to protect them from other dangerous wildlife. Because they lost their mothers at a young age, they do not know how to hunt for food, defend themselves or even act like how a sun bear should.Â
Often found wounded, the sun bears are then taken in by Wong to care for them, feed them and teach them how to be what they are born to be: bears that hunt and kill to survive.Â
â100 per cent of the bears are orphaned. What happens is people kill the mother and normally the authorities confiscate the bear from somebody because they get too big and very ginormous big and they put them into care. It is very hard to release them, they havenât...Wong said it is a forest but it is a forest contained with electric fences. They get to learn to live in the forest.Â
âAnd from there they are taken into the main forest but that hasnât happened yet. They havenât had mothers to teach them how to live in the forest. So it takes them awhile to learn the skills. Things like not to go or the bears will kill them, the snakes...all the skills that they should have learned from their mother in the period of two years. They havenât been able to do.Â
âWong doesnât take them from the wild. These are bears that had their mothers killed by someone else and captured as pets or somehow something went wrong there. Whenever they find out that these bears are kept as pets, then they are notified and Wong and the wildlife department come and rescue them, confiscate them and then put them in this rehab centre,â said Low.Â
âBig Dreams and Little Bearsâ is aimed to create awareness about the Bornean sun bears and this nonprofit film is screened at film festivals. It is also available for rent or download at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Big-Dream-Little-Bears/132176090151532?sk=info and http://distrify.com/ as well as http://www.bsbcc.org.my/.Â
Forty per cent of the profit from the downloads will be used to release three of the Bornean sun bears into their natural habitat. The entire production of this film was fully self-funded.Â
âWhen we screened the film in Australia, the response was overwhelmingly positive. We hope to do another film in Sabah. The place is a gem, a planet gem where you can find unbelievable things,â said Jackson.Â
The experience of filming was truly inspiring for Low.Â
âFor me it was actually the first moment of encountering the bears because I have never seen one of these bears before and then when we went to see them, to hear them bark. The first reaction when I heard them bark was, it really gets you in the guts. You feel that as a human, youâre not supposed to be this close to this species. Yes, they are behind a cage but still it is a very visceral sort of reaction and also seeing them for the first time, because we had a long journey getting from Australia to Sepiluk, we thought this journey is worth it, you know. Itâs just amazing to be so close,â said Low.Â
âIt turned into a classic story unlike a documentary where you look at a bear, thereâs a bear in a tree, thereâs a bear being bitten by a snake. This was an ensemble cast, bears happened to be part of it where you watch this problem being solved with a resolution so it was very much a story,â said Jackson.Â
The screening of âBig Dreams, Little Bearsâ will be held on 14 October 2012, 6pm at the Experimental Theater, University of Malaya. For more information, do check out www.facebook.com/KualaLumpurEcoFilmFest
Podcast of our interview with BFM Business and Finance Radio
Podcast of our interview with BFM Business and Finance Radio
Shot in Borneo and featuring the country's passionate conservation biologist, Wong Siew Te, this film is an amazing representative of the efforts which are championed by the Borneo Sun Bear Conservation Centre. We find out more from Director Howard Jackson and Producer Dr. Audrey Low.
Launch of Big Dream little Bears on TEDx by Siew Te Wong. Wildhoop Productions. Director Howard Jackson. Presenter, Dr Audrey Low. A story about the tiniest bears on earth and one man's dream to save them. Uplifting, often funny, tense; an adventurous and intimate look at the mysterious island of Borneo.
I can't stop watching this film, it brightens my day. Thank you for this wonderful film. It will really help to spread the word about Wong, his team and those gorgeous creatures who need our help x
Creating awareness is very important and it is something we all understand. Absolutely fantastic video. Wonderful seeing the bears and Wong Siew Te's team. How jealous of Ng am I being able to play with Suria. Angela Kyle
This is WONDERFUL!!! Jill Wheaton Lindsey
Thanks for what you are doing to help the sun bears!! Diana Sutton
Thanks to you two for your involvement in the effort to help people realize how important wildlife is to all of us!! Madelon McClure
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