photo courtesy of Victoria Stone
I recently traveled to Sicily to meet up with Save the Elephants founder Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton and to attend the screening of the new documentary The Elephant Queen at the Taormina Film Festival. The film festival takes place on the Italian coast in an ancient Greek amphitheater.
The Elephant Queen was just released this year, and has been shown at a number of film festivals. It will be available later on Apple’s new streaming service. The new documentary is directed by Victoria Stone and Mark Deeble of Deeble and Stone, and narrated by Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years A Slave). It tells the story of an elephant called Athena, queen of her herd, as she leads her herd on a dangerous journey in search of a new watering hole, as theirs is drying up. It is powerful and beautiful. You can get a preview by watching the trailer below.
Mark Deeble also has some great writing on his blog. He tells the story of finding an elephant tusk and realizing that he knew the elephant it had belonged to here: https://markdeeble.wordpress.com/2016/04/28/the-story-of-a-tusk-kg-voi-river-30514/
He also writes about the importance of time and place in recording audio for wildlife films. Have a read and listen here: https://markdeeble.wordpress.com/2015/07/15/the-elephant-movie-the-sound-of-it/