It’s no
wonder ‘The Elephant Queen’ has won international film awards all the
way from Toronto to New York and London to Sundance, Utah.
It’s an
enchanting feature documentary narrated by the award-winning actor Chewetel
Ejiofor (The Lion King and The Boy who harnessed the wind) and
written by Mark Deeble who also co-directed it with his fellow filmmaker and
wife Victoria Stone.
It took them
eight years to make the film, four to live fulltime in Tsavo East National Park
and the greater Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem. In those four years, he would film
every day and she would edit every night. And in the process, they crafted a
remarkable story about a majestic matriarch they named Athena and her beautiful
elephant family.
“It took us
one and a half years to find Athena,” says Deeble who first saw her near their
campsite. It was her majesty and stately size of her tusks that initially struck
them. “But then we saw her family including the cubs,” he adds, admitting they
were quickly inspired to follow them and film their lives.
But don’t imagine
‘The Elephant Queen’ is just a cute animal ‘reality show’ or just another
wildlife documentary. The film is indeed meant to be family-friendly, and this
may be why the filmmakers don’t focus on the cruel criminality of poachers. Nor
do they dwell on the tragic connection between climate change and the famine
Athena and her family face on their journey from their home, a waterhole run
dry, across Badlands, finally to reach another waterhole whose water comes from
an underground spring not from the air.
Deeble
manages to magically capture all the drama, joy and delightful charm of
Athena’s kingdom at their waterhole which the family shares with a myriad of
creatures. The interaction of them and the family, extended over time is a
marvel. Each creature has a story, from the high-flying dung beetle to the
goslings we see emerge from their eggs eventually to become fully grown geese.
The film is
ingeniously energized by the busy lives of chameleons and fern frogs, bull
frogs and tortoises, fish and flocks of flying fowl, all of which are part of
the Queen’s paradise. In this regard, Deeble had a big advantage, having
trained as a zoologist before becoming a filmmaker. It’s that background that
enabled him to share not just a humanist perspective on the creatures but share
the creatures’ stories from their point of view.
The film
feels less like a documentary and more like a moving feature film about a
family held together by the all-seeing, all-wise Athena who is deeply committed
to keeping her family safe and intact.
From season
to season, feast to famine, Badlands back to Paradise, ‘The Elephant Queen’
is meant to appeal to children and adults alike. Nonetheless, the filmmakers made
an arrangement with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development to share the
Queen’s story through a book series specially developed by a larger ‘Elephant
Queen’ team which will be included in the country’s national curriculum.
“Their
intention from the beginning was for the film to have wide outreach and appeal
right here in Kenya,” says Lucinda Englehart who produced the film with
Victoria Stone.
“That is why
we created a series of 28 ‘learn to read’ children’s books which are meant to
both promote literacy and wildlife awareness that will ideally remain with them
all their lives,” Lucinda adds.
Beautifully
illustrated by Harriet Stanes and Sophie Walbeoffe, the books may also enable
children to gain appreciation not only for the beauty of nature and the
environment but also of art/
The Queen
‘team’ also created a series of three scripts for different age-groups to
produce plays revolving around the characters in the film, from the ever-tardy
gosling and romantic tortoise to the acrobatic dung beetle, they all have roles
to play in scripts meant to be catalysts for creativity.
Deeble and
Stone have spent more than 30 years making films in Africa, but never before
one focused on the Matriarch of the Savannah. And while ‘Queen’ had its world
premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, it’s here in Kenya that they’ve created
an Outreach Program with KICD that aim at making the film accessible to all
Kenyans. The book series and plays are only two aspects of their concern for
accessibility. They have also translated the film’s narrative into Kiswahili
and Maa for public screenings.
It will also
be shown on Kenyan TV on Easter Sunday at 5pm.
No comments:
Post a Comment