A climate activist hired at an upscale “eco-lodge” discovers a trophy-hunting cesspit of human and environmental exploitation and must choose whether to be prey, or become the predator.
Jobie Daniels, a young “mixed” (to use the “international” term) South African woman recently ejected from the UK and her scholarship at a university there after an arrest for her climate activism takes a job, in a moment of desperation, at Eco-Ubuntu Lodge.
She quickly realizes the lodge, run by the charismatic but menacing Arno, is actually a front for corrupt international business deals related to fracking interests in water-scarce areas and facilitating illegal CANNED lion hunts for wealthy Epstein Bro-Types and their business partners. As Jobie contends with a system that works in the short term, but punishes women, vulnerable communities, and the local ecosystem in the long term, she reaches a breaking point and decides to risk it all. She gathers evidence to expose the lodge to a journalist and plans a disaster that will get the world's attention.
Jobie tries to backtrack when her concerned younger sister arrives, worried about Jobie, propelling them both onto a dangerous lion hunt leading to chaotic, violent attack on one the trophy hunters by starving lionesses and an expose of internationally seeded corruption. The story ends on an ambiguous but mostly positive note.
Born and raised in South Africa, where she has unshakable roots and often returns, she left a successful career as a journalist and columnist in Cape Town to pursue her filmmaking dreams, winning a DGA Award for her MFA thesis short starring John Heard, among other accolades for shorts, music videos, and screenplays. Her debut feature, "NOBODY LEAVES 'til Jesus Comes" (not a religious film) debuted at Dances With Films, LA '24. She’s worked as a writer/director on shorts, and a game, and published her afro-futuristic graphic novel ZANA: Book One. She has various features, shorts, a novel, and other projects in the works, including the Page Awards Finalist historical feature WAKING A QUEEN, set in South Africa.
