Zara Hayes

Listen to "Zara Hayes From Natl Geo Wild" on Spreaker. The series is filled with Fossey’s own observations, recorded in her writings and brought to life by Sigourney Weaver, who has a special connection to Fossey. Weaver won a Golden Globe, and was nominated for an Oscar, for her portrayal of Fossey in the 1988 film “Gorillas in the Mist.” Weaver is uniquely placed to recount Fossey’s firsthand thoughts and feelings. Acclaimed film director, producer and writer James Marsh serves as executive producer on the miniseries. Marsh directed 2008’s “Man on Wire,” the Academy Award-winning documentary about Philippe Petit’s high wire walk between New York’s Twin Towers. Marsh also helmed 2015’s “The Theory of Everything,” the Academy Award- and Golden Globe-nominated film about physicist Stephen Hawking and his relationship with his wife. Dian Fossey: Secrets in the Mist presents exclusive access to rare and unseen footage of Fossey in her daily habituations and up-close studies of gorillas. Also featured are in-depth interviews with her close colleagues and friends, including gorilla researcher and doctoral student Wayne McGuire and friend Sir David Attenborough. Dian Fossey: Secrets in the Mist tells Fossey’s life story from her lonely childhood to her work in Rwanda, where she founded the Karisoke Research Center in September 1967 and spent 18 years studying and protecting the mountain gorilla population there. The series details her close friendship with the young gorilla Digit, whose merciless mutilation and decapitation by poachers would deeply affect Fossey, as well as the people who worked by her side, including National Geographic photographer Bob Campbell, with whom she fell in love but who would leave her heartbroken when he returned to civilization and his wife. Fossey was brutally slain in her remote mountain cabin in 1985. The series explores the investigation around her murder and the subsequent trial of McGuire, who was found guilty in absentia by Rwandan courts. McGuire’s conviction has long been questioned by those familiar with the circumstances, and now — with exclusive access to Fossey’s belongings and personal effects, including objects from the scene of her murder as well as a rare interview with McGuire himself — his claims of innocence are given new credence. Checking in on the legacy of Fossey’s work, Dian Fossey: Secrets in the Mist features footage of the Pablo troop of gorillas, descendants of the very gorillas Fossey studied. Thanks to her work in protecting Rwanda’s mountain gorilla population, the group was able to survive the worst years of poaching and threats to their habitat.