Sneak Peek: Check out the Fist Six Minutes of 'Project Nim'

Friday, 08 July 2011 06:38 Written by Jordan DeSaulnier

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Sneak Peek: Check out the Fist Six Minutes of 'Project Nim'

In no less than two films this summer, groups of ambitious humans raise chimpanzees in decidedly un-chimplike environments. In the quasi-prequel Rise of the Apes due in August, the chimp is Caesar, a fictitious ape created via motion capture and raised by Jame Franco in San Francisco. In the documentary Project Nim, the chimp is Nim, a real-life chimp raised as a human in a New York-based experiment designed to imbue an ape with greater communicative skills. The first six minutes of Project Nim are freely available online and the taste provided will almost surely pique your interest, while indicating why the film was so praised at Sundance this year.

This six-minute excerpt is courtesy of Yahoo! Movies.

The level of actual documentation on Nim's infancy is surprising. Almost as surprising as seeing the little guy breast feeding or hanging out side-by-side with a human baby.

No, Project Nim will not have oodles of Weta Digital-created CGI apes tearing San Francisco a new one, but since it's directed by James Marsh, it will have a story of remarkable depth, movingly presented with an eye for telling details. Marsh previously directed the incredible documentary Man on Wire, chronicling Philippe Petit's remarkable and illegal 1974 tightrope walk between the Twin Towers in Manhattan. He also directs narrative features, having helmed the middle installment of the hugely acclaimed British Red Riding Trilogy in 2009.

Project Nim hits theaters today, July 8th.