Updated: The below Article was written before the COVID-19 postponement of the Sonoma Film Festival’s decision to screen its Festival Online. Happily Elephant Refugees will be screened on the opening night platform , July 30, 2020: Sales have opened NOW as a package with another film, The Guardian Elephant Warriors Of Reteti. BOTH FILMS CAN BE PURCHASED FOR VIEWING FOR ONLY $10.00! Viewing begins at the start of the festival, July 30.
🔴 Click here and then click on the picture of Elephant Refugees to purchase both films at once! https://watch.eventive.org/sonoma2020
A fight to survive, when waters run dry…. by Melanie Nathan:
ELEPHANT REFUGEES PREMIERS AT SONOMA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
A caring family become involved in the dramatic survival of hundreds of thirsty elephants seeking water at an ancient pan, located at their Elephant Sands Bush Camp. The unfolding drama is captured in Elephant Refugees, by Academy Award winning filmmaker Louise Hogarth. The film is slated to premiere at the Sonoma International Film Festival on opening night, July, 30, 2020.
This crisis of elephantine proportions, playing out in the dry sandy Kalahari woodlands of eastern Botswana, is narrated by Game of Thrones’s Jerome Flynn (Serr Bronn of the Blackwater).
For the past 50 years International crime syndicates have poached wildlife throughout Africa in shocking quantities – forcing the elephants to flee for their lives using the ancient elephant pathways. When Botswana became a poacher-free zone in 2014, the news quickly spread from one elephant family to another, sparking a great migration. “We don’t know how elephants communicate over hundreds of miles, but they do,” notes Hogarth.
Sixty per cent of Africa’s elephants now live in Botswana. However in the midst of completing the film – an unspeakable update, as the new government overturned the hunting ban and once again Botswana’s elephants are on the auction block.
Hogarth says, “Elephants are extraordinarily emotional beings. They are conscious of themselves as individuals and as family. They feel joy, experience sadness, pain, pleasure and grief. They cry real tears and exhibit beautiful qualities of compassion and protection. Elephants need increased understanding and tolerance from humans.
One African elephant is killed every 15 minutes that equals 40,000 a year. Africa’s total estimated elephant population is less than 400,000 if the killing continues; elephants will be extinct in 10 years. Together, we can and must make an effort to save Africa’s elephants. I don’t want to live in a world without elephants.”
Sonoma International Film festival:
When: July 30, 2020
Special Deal: Sales have opened, as a package with another film, The Guardian Elephant Warriors Of Reteti.
BOTH FILMS CAN BE PURCHASED FOR VIEWING FOR ONLY $10.00!
🔴 Click here and then click on the picture of Elephant Refugees to purchase both films at once! https://watch.eventive.org/sonoma2020
About Louise Hogarth (Director, Writer, Producer)
Louise Hogarth is an award-winning independent documentary filmmaker. For the past two decades she has been directing and producing extraordinary documentaries that highlight cutting-edge controversial social issues including The Panama Deception, that she co-produced in 1992 about the US invasion in Panama, which won the Academy Award for Best Feature Length Documentary. In 2003, Louise wrote, directed and produced The Gift, the highly provocative look at the men who intentionally contracted the HIV/AIDs virus, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, and screened in over 200 film festivals worldwide. It won numerous awards and was broadcast around the world. In recognition of her pioneering work, Seed Magazine in their Anniversary Issue “A Portfolio of the Icons & Iconoclasts who Redefined Science,” featured her in their top-twenty Scientists in the United States and Canada.
Louise went on to write, direct and produce the poignant and heartfelt Angels in the Dust featuring a successful professional couple from Johannesburg who fearlessly walk away from their privilege city life with their daughters to build a school and provide shelter for over 550 young African children. The film was executive produced by Participant Media and premiered globally in over 80 film festivals. It won the coveted Amnesty International Amsterdam (VARA
Audience Award), in recognition of her contribution to promoting greater awareness and understanding of human rights issues.
Angels in the Dust went on to win Best International Documentary at the Encounters Film Festival SA; Emerging Pictures/Full Frame Audience Award; Seattle Film Festival Special Jury Prize for Best Documentary; and was selected to be included in the prestigious the International Documentary Association DocuWeek showcase in Los Angeles.
Louise Hogarth is founder and president of DREAM OUT LOUD PRODUCTIONS that advocates documentary films to serve as vehicles for awareness for action and change.
THE FESTIVAL LINK TO FILM SCREENINGS: http://www.sonomafilmfest.org/film-festival-guide.html
Friday March 27th and Sunday March 29th
Make a tax free donation to DOL FILMS at www.DOLfilms.org #elephantrefugees
CREDITS
DREAM OUT LOUD PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS A FILM BY LOUISE HOGARTH
PRODUCED AND WRITTEN BY
LOUISE HOGARTH and LYNN WEBBNARRATED BY JEROME FLYNN
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY ALISTAIR LYNE EDITED BY MARIO DEL BELLO
DIRECTED BY LOUISE HOGARTHDIRECTED BY LOUISE HOGARTH
PRODUCED AND WRITTEN BY LOUISE HOGARTH &
LYNN WEBBNARRATED BY JEROME FLYNN
EDITED BY
MARIO DEL BELLO HUIKAI CUDIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY ALISTAIR LYNE
ORIGINAL MUSIC BY LAURA STEVENS
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS LOUISE HOGARTH & LYNN WEBB
CO-PRODUCER KARI COLLINS
ASSOCIATE PRODUCR MARY CLARE GRIFFIN
SOUND MIXER TIM PRINGLE
COLORIST CRAIG PARKER
ANIMATION BY
3RD FLOOR ANIMATION STUDIO
ADDITIONAL EDITING MARINA DU TOIT MIKE MURPHY
ADDITIONAL CAMERA MARTIN HARVEY LOUISE HOGARTH
CONSULTING EDITOR PAM SCOTT ARNOLD, ACE
VETERINARIAN
DR. ERIK VERREYNNEPRODUCTION ACCOUNTANT WENDY WERNER
ASSISTANTS TO DIRECTOR TERRA ROSENBERG NANCY XU
TOM EVANTRANSCRIPTION TERRA ROSENBERG MATTHEW BELL NAYZAK S. NAJM ELBE VAN HEERDEN LESLEY RAHME
INTERNS SHUBHAM GOEL
MARTIN CUARTERO KEON NADERI
FEATURING
BEN MOLLER
MARIE MOLLER
MIKE TOTH
SASKIA TOTH
TANYA TOTH
LAZARUS SIWYANGWIE MARK MOULD
RYNHARDT ERASMUS CASIDY WEBB
ESETHU MADWANTSI WILBERT HOEDEMAKERERS LEON KILLIAN
NUNO SIQUEIRAKICKSTARTER SOCIAL MEDIA KIRSTEN ROGERS
HARRIET CROOMECO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER MAURICE KANBAR
SPECIAL THANKS CECILIA HOGARTH
ACCOMMODATIONS PROVIDED BY ELEPHANT SANDS
PRODUCTION OFFICES PROVIDED BY KANBAR ENTERTAINMENT
Make a tax free donation to DOL FILMS at www.DOLfilms.org #elephantrefugees
Melanie Nathan:
My E-mail – commissionermnathan@gmail.com
Follow me on Twitter – @MelanieNathan1
Check out my Instagram: Commissionermelnathan
My websites:
Speaker: www.melnathan.com
Mediation: www.privatecourts.com
Refugee / Asylum Advocacy: www.africanHRC.org
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