Crocodopolis

Crocodopolis is a feature length documentary film about crocodile conservation and research on Lake Nasser in Southern Egypt. It’s directed by our guest, Omar Manjouneh.

Illustration by Jasmine Hortop.

The first thing that struck me when Omar started describing the story he’s been following in the film, was how similar the issue is in many ways to that faced by the vaquita porpoise in Northwestern Mexico. After spending five years documenting the vaquita’s extinction crisis, my ears perk up whenever someone mentions the illegal trafficking of wildlife products. Illicit markets for crocodile parts are certainly playing a role in the decline of Egypt’s crocodile population, but as Omar explains, it’s a bit more complicated.

Misinformation and fear are playing a large role in the crocodile’s decline, and one of the best ways to fight misinformation is with truthful, but compelling, storytelling. Omar’s primary goal with his film is to spread awareness amongst the local communities of Egypt’s Lake Nasser, and I believe that this film has great potential to affect positive change.

Omar is also breaking the mold for wildlife filmmaking from an industry standpoint. In our conversation, we talked about how most wildlife films that are shot in Africa aren’t actually accessible to African audiences. Omar, obviously, wants to change this, but he’s fighting an uphill battle against biases in the industry. Listen in to this week’s episode to hear how Omar is working to make this story accessible to Africans and Egyptians first and foremost.

If you want to have a look at some of the footage from Omar’s film, you can check out the crowdfunding campaign for Crocodopolis as well! Make a contribution of any size and help bring this project to fruition! 

Click here to check out the campaign.

-Matt Podolsky