About

In 1973 a baby chimpanzee, named Nim Chimpsky, became the focus of a landmark experiment to debunk Noam Chomsky’s theory that language was uniquely human by attempting to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim’s extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, this is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human.

BBC Films and UK Film Council present a Red Box Films Production in association with Passion Pictures.