In the film, she travels to Africa to study the life of the mountain gorillas. During her stay there, she starts to know more about the animals of the jungle. She observes how the few animals that remain are massacred by hunters. She dedicates the rest of her life to protect and take care of them.
She establishes a national park in the mountains. She becomes famous thank to the informative documentaries about gorillas that she records for the National Geographic. She has a really close relationship with Digit, the dominant gorilla from the first group she studied. The death of this gorilla at the hands of poachers was a great sorrow for her.
Finally, Dian Fossey is brutally murdered in her bedroom at the cabin by an unknown attacker. Her life had a tragic ending, but she died fighting for the freedom of the gorillas.
