ABOUT
Logline
In 1957, renowned wildlife artist Robert Bateman and fearless biologist Bristol Foster set off on a global expedition in a Land Rover named The Grizzly Torque – never imagining the extraordinary encounters that lay ahead.
Synopsis
In 1957, two adventurous young men, driven by their love of nature, set out on a global expedition in a rugged Land Rover they call The Grizzly Torque. Beginning in the UK, their journey takes them to the far corners of the earth, where they document extraordinary landscapes, creatures and cultures; one paints the wonders they encounter while the other captures them on a 16mm Bolex camera.
Sixty-eight years later, Robert Bateman, now a world-renowned wildlife artist, and Bristol Foster, an iconic biologist and filmmaker, remain deeply immersed in the natural world. As the decades pass, their journey of discovery evolves into one of activism. Weaving through time, we witness Robert’s paintings and Bristol’s work laying bare a deep concern for the environment.
Featuring dazzling archival footage and vibrant artistic depictions, The Art of Adventure offers a road movie experience, blending buddy humour and environmental awe. Through the lens of Robert and Bristol’s 80-year friendship, we witness a lifelong bond—and a lifelong mission—come full circle.
ALISON REID
DIRECTOR, PRODUCER
Alison Reid is an award winning filmmaker with a passion for adventure. After racking up over 300 credits as a stunt performer and stunt coordinator, she formed FREE SPIRIT FILMS in order to make films diverse in genre but similar in their exploration of the human spirit. Under that banner she directed, wrote and produced critically acclaimed feature documentary, THE WOMAN WHO LOVES
GIRAFFES (Crave, Zeitgeist Films, Kino Lorber – voiceovers by Victor Garber & Tatiana Maslany) which screened at over 50 film festivals worldwide, won multiple Best Film and Audience Awards and had a robust theatrical release in the USA and Canada. Positive reviews from The New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Variety and The Wrap contributed to its 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Her award winning debut feature film LGBTQ2+ comedy, THE BABY FORMULA (E-One, Warner Bros Digital) screened at over 50 film festivals worldwide and was chosen to be opening night or closing night film multiple times including at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival.
Alison’s television directing credits include the new Amazon series, BEYOND BLACK BEAUTY (Amazon), the cop dramedy, HUDSON & REX (City tv), GOOD WITCH (Hallmark), family drama, HEARTLAND (CBC), period drama MURDOCH MYSTERIES (CBC) and medical drama SAVING HOPE (CTV). She earned her first professional writing credit in her twenties with episodes of the CTV television series KATTS & DOG (RIN TIN TIN K9 COP).
Alison is an alumna of the Women in the Director’s Chair program and of the Canadian Film Centre. She is known for being one of the first female stunt coordinators in North America.
ROBERT MCLELLAN BATEMAN
WILDLIFE ARTIST, NATURALIST
Robert Bateman was born in Toronto, earned a degree in geography from the University of Toronto, then taught high school for 20 years, including two years in Nigeria. He travelled around the world in 1957-58, increasing his appreciation of cultural and natural heritage. Since leaving teaching in 1976 to paint full-time, he has travelled widely with his artist/conservationist wife, Birgit, to many remote natural areas. The family moved to Salt Spring Island in 1985.
Bateman has been a keen artist and naturalist from his early days. He has always painted wildlife and nature, beginning with a representational style, moving through impressionism and cubism to abstract expressionism. In his early thirties he moved back to realism as a more suitable way to express the particularity of the planet. It is this style that has made him one of the foremost artists depicting the world of nature.
In the ‘70s and early ‘80s, Bateman’s work began to receive critical acclaim and to attract an enormous following. His work is in many public and private collections, and several art museums, including the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, WY. Bateman has had many one-man museum shows throughout North America, including an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC in 1987. The retrospective show, The Art of Robert Bateman, toured Canada and the USA for two years.
Books about his life and art have had sales of over 1,000,000 copies. He has also been the subject of several films and television programs. His honours, awards and honorary doctorates are numerous and include Officer of the Order of Canada. It is in honour of Bateman’s contribution to art, teaching and conservation that two schools and a community centre have been named after him; as well, he has been awarded 14 honorary doctorates.
His art reflects his commitment to ecology and preservation. Since the early 1960’s, he has been an active member of naturalist and conservation organizations, now on a global scale. He has become a spokesman for many environmental and preservation issues and has used his artwork and limited edition prints in fund-raising efforts that have provided millions of dollars for these worthy causes.
Robert Bateman is perceived by many to be one of the voices of reason and hope for healthy, rejuvenated and creative engagement with the natural world.
He says, “I can’t conceive of anything being more varied and rich and handsome than the planet earth. And its crowning beauty is the natural world. I want to soak it up, to understand it as well as I can, and to absorb it . . . and then I’d like to put it together and express it in my painting. This is the way I want to dedicate my life.”
BRISTOL FOSTER
BIOLOGIST, NATURALIST
Bristol Foster is a naturalist, conservation biologist and documentary filmmaker with a PhD in Ecology. He has over forty years of experience as an ecologist and educator. Bristol’s illustrious career has included Head of Wildlife Ecology Graduate Studies program at the University of Nairobi (Kenya), Director of the Royal British Columbia Museum and Director of the Provincial Ecological Reserves program.
Bristol graduated with a degree in biology from the University of Toronto and became enthralled by Arctic biology. He spent two summers studying the ecology of a rare lemming-like mammal for his master’s degree. Bristol then spent a year and a half traveling through Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia with wildlife artist Robert Bateman, before returning to Canada and completing his Ph.D.
His degree focused on the evolution of the native mammals of the Haidi Gwaii, an archipelago lying south of the panhandle of Alaska. Bristol then headed to Kenya for five years to lead a graduate student program in wildlife ecology, eventually writing, with a colleague, the definitive book on the giraffe. From Africa he returned to become Director of the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, B.C. After six years in this position, he became the Director of Ecological Reserves Program for the Province wherein over 100 areas have been set aside for research.
He then became ecological consultant, spending much of his time trying to protect the last remnants of temperate rainforest on the British Columbia coast and making TV documentaries all over the world.
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