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Title: AARDVARK, OR ANT BEAR, the

Reference number: 4073

Date: 1961c

Director: filmed by Elizabeth Balneaves

Sponsor: Educational Films of Scotland

Sound: mute

Original format: 16mm

Colour: bw

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 11.35 mins

Description: Made for Educational Films of Scotland, this film shows the capture and transportation of the aardvark from Africa, and the animal in a zoo enclosure roaming around and feeding.

Shot during rescue of animals stranded by the creation of an artificial lake behind the new Kariba dam on the Zambesi. Edited in Balneaves attic on borrowed Bell & Howell. Balneaves named the aardvark 'Willie'.

Interview with Balneaves from July 2000 held at National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive. Also held are paper records including correspondence, and scripts.

Shotlist: gvs aardvark roaming around enclosure, searching for food in soil (1.50) Kariba, Africa and a boat trip sets out from riverbank (2.56) gvs marshlands and riverbank (4.07) people construct cage and clear ground, digging hole and finally capturing aardvark (8.29) aardvark is unloaded and man and woman [possibly the filmmaker, Elizabeth Balneaves] drug it (9.04) box with aardvark is transported on British United Airways aeroplane, gvs zoo in Britain [probably Edinburgh Zoo] with people visiting aardvark enclosure, gvs animal (11.28)