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Detecting Danger: Africa's Giant Rats

  • January 2019
  • 52mins

  • Documentary
  • Directed by

    Herbert Ostwald,

    Bernd Wilting,

    Starring

    Andrew Solomon,

    Africa's giant rats – the size of a cat – can be trained to detect land-mines by smelling them. Giant rats are clever and they learn fast. Their sense of smell is better than a dog's, they have more stamina, and they're a lot cheaper to train. This documentary follows "Miss Marple", who was born in a training lab and who goes through a year's training before being sent on her first mission to Mozambique. A shorter version (43 minutes) screened at festivals in 2009 but was never widely released.