Jon Batiste to Narrate American Amazon Documentary

The film, produced by Grizzly Creek Films in partnership with PBS’s Nature series, arrives in IMAX and giant screen theaters on November 13, 2026. After four years of production, the documentary showcases ancient landscapes, including two-thousand-year-old cypress forests and complex river systems. Director Eric Bendick describes the project as a journey into the world’s best-kept secrets, capturing rare behaviors of wildlife such as swallow-tailed kites and black bears.

For Batiste, the project represents a homecoming. Having grown up in Louisiana, he views the Southern landscape as sacred soil that remains largely misunderstood by the broader public. The production seeks to bridge the gap between human culture and the natural environment, framing the ecosystem not just as a visual spectacle, but as a fragile resource in need of stewardship. Following its theatrical run, the project will expand into a two-part mini-series on PBS in early 2027.