Disneynature's 'Tiger' gives intimate look at the majestic animal in a magical way

Debuting on Disney+ just in time for Earth Day is Disneynature's "Tiger."

This new documentary follows a family of tigers in the jungles of India, intimately filmed like never before.

"They are the most fearsome, and yet the most elusive animal that you could ever film," said Producer Roy Conli.

Disneynature's "Tiger" takes us to India to meet a tigress raising her four young cubs in the country's fabled forests.

"You know the expression of being a 'tiger mom'?" asks co-director Vanessa Berlowitz. "I think once you watch this show, you get it. You see where that phrase comes from and you really identify with her."

From hunting to protecting and nurturing her young, we get a rare look inside Ambar's den.

"When we started this, we weren't sure if the technology was there in order to catch that close-up behavior," Conli says.

So they turned to state-of-the-art, long-lens, remote-controlled cameras to capture the intimate scenes, without the tigers sensing the presence of humans.

"The Tigers are completely relaxed, and doing behavior that they wouldn't usually do when people are there," says Director Mark Linfield. "And that was, I guess, one of our secrets."

"Tiger" is narrated by Indian-born actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas.

"We knew that we wanted a connection with India," Conli says. "We knew that Priyanka had actually adopted two tigers in the wild. Her interest was immediate."

There's also a companion piece to this documentary called "Tigers on the Rise," also streaming on Disney+. It follows India's fight to save the species.

"They were on the cusp of extinction," Linfield says. "Because Indians have protected them, they came right back up in numbers. It's one of the world's great conservation success stories."

The filmmakers say you will come to understand tigers in a new way.

"They're incredibly, sort of, sophisticated," Linfield says. "They are complex and sentient and emotional animals in they're not quite what people paint them as."

Conli says they learned this by looking into their eyes.

"Look into a tiger's eyes," he says, "and you see so much of their thinking process. You can see something that is just magical."