Our protagonist for this urban story about climate-motivated wildlife migration into cities, the common fox (vulpes vulpes – or in Greek, αλεπού, “alepou”) is perhaps the most misunderstood urban animal. Highly intelligent, highly adaptable, and omnivorous, foxes have lived alongside humans since our hunter-gatherer days. Now, forced into the centre of Athens each summer by climate-change-induced wildfires, and lured in by the promise of readily-accessible food, as foxes simultaneously become more used to people, the habitats where they are able to avoid them gradually disappear – and as a result, violence against them increases.

My good friend Iro, after being awarded some funding from the National Geographic Society and The Nature Conservancy's Extern program after a successful piece of writing for ArcGIS StoryMaps, floated the idea to me of creating an associated film. The Last Den was to be my second documentary project, and my first to be completed in a foreign language (Greek – which I don’t speak!).

We spent ten days filming in Athens – filming near the well-trodden sights of the Acropolis and the urban centre as well as further afield, visiting the green pine woodland which covers the surrounding hills as well as desolate skeleton forests which had been decimated by the well-publicised wildfires last summer (and then again, as recently as a day before filming). The island of Aegina, and the headquarters of the various NGOs doing important work to help these animals, also feature. After a few night missions, we were fortunate to spend some one-on-one time with Rocco, a well known friend of the neighbourhood, who patiently posed for some beauty shots under the streetlamps. In the misty forests of Parnitha (where the mountainous climate was closer to that of Scotland than it was to holiday-maker-Greece) we were treated to some more conventional wildlife filmmaking, with some glimpses of foxes in a more natural environment. In total, we shot nine interviews (we were determined that natural sound-bites would constitute the bulk of the storytelling) and any additional time was filled with the capture of presenter-led PTC links, drone establishing shots, and timelapses – with more than a few early rises attempting to capture the sun coming up over the ancient city!

We have just released the trailer for the documentary and are now working hard on the edit of the full-length film, which we look forward to releasing in 2026.

Lorimer Macandrew, Producer