By the D23 Team
High in the treetops of Southeast Asia lives a magnificent and mysterious community filled with playful personalities. Narrated by Disney Legend Josh Gad, Disneynature’s Orangutan takes viewers into the world’s most majestic rainforest canopy to meet Indah, an inquisitive adolescent orangutan learning how to navigate life as she prepares to leave her family and venture out on her own for the first time.
Orangutan is directed by Mark Linfield, co-directed by Vanessa Berlowitz, and produced by Linfield, Berlowitz and Roy Conli, with original music by Nitin Sawhney. Featuring exhilarating action, heartwarming encounters, and a close-up look at a stunning jungle teeming with wildlife, the all-new original film releases on Earth Day—April 22, 2026—exclusively on Disney+.
The filmmakers behind Orangutan embarked on a nearly four-year journey—including over 650 shooting days on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra—to capture and edit the footage that would become Disneynature’s latest film.
When the time came to choose a lead orangutan to follow, the team picked an adolescent, Indah, preparing to leave her mother, Diann, and baby brother, Bimo. As co-director Berlowitz explains, “Orangutans spend 10 to 13 years with their mothers, but when they finally strike out on their own, the stage is set for plenty of drama. Suddenly, they are meeting new orangutans and encountering fresh dangers. They also must figure out how to find food without their mother’s help for the first time.” Director Linfield adds, “This is always an exciting time in a young orangutan’s life, so we knew Indah’s ‘coming of age’ and the animals she met along the way had the potential to provide the heart of our story.”
As with previous Disneynature films, working closely with Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Story Trust helped further shape Indah’s narrative. “Whenever you walk into a community of apes, there are a dozen stories you could tell and a dozen worthy characters,” says Linfield. “Working with the Story Trust helped us identify which characters to develop and the best way to do it.” “It’s great really understanding what works from a story perspective,” agrees Berlowitz. “That’s honed through working with Roy Conli and the Story Trust. It makes you ask the scientists better questions and recognize what types of behaviors will create the best story. In this film, I think we’ve been able to marry the storytelling needs with the science better than ever.”
Intrigued? Us too! To get you even more excited for Orangutan’s Disney+ debut, here are five fun facts about the majestic great apes themselves, and about the making of the film:
1. Orangutans are the largest tree-dwelling mammal in the world; adult males grow up to 5.5 feet tall and can weigh over 200 pounds. Their arms are 1.5 times as long as a human’s.
2. Orangutans in Sumatra—where the orangutan community featured in this film was shot—spend almost all their lives in the trees, coming down to the ground only rarely to reach water, salt, or to fight. In Borneo, where additional photography was captured, they come to the ground more often because there are no tigers on the island.
3. Orangutans use over 30 different tools! Among them are sticks to extract honey, ants, or termites from tree holes and to reach seeds deep inside fruits; leaf gloves to hold sharp plant material; and leaf sponges to soak up drinking water they couldn’t otherwise reach.
4. Orangutans treat their wounds with medicinal plants. They chew them into a pulp and spread the pulp onto their cuts.
5. Disneynature’s Orangutan shot for over 650 days and employed 230 locals in various roles.
