North Carolina Based Filmmakers Take on Poaching in East Africa
Raleigh, NC (PRWEB) November 12, 2014 -- Wildlife game is going extinct at an alarming rate in Africa. At the current rate, wild lions, elephants and rhinos will all be extinct within the next 10 years. “Trophy Games” is a feature documentary that focuses on the wildlife conservation battle going on in East Africa.
In a world filled with depressing and hopeless documentaries about how the planet is running rapidly off the cliff, this documentary is taking a different take.
“Trophy Games is more than just a film about conservation; it’s a story that follows the lives of a few people on the frontline in Kenya. We are bridging the viewer to the people behind the headlines,” said director David Hambridge.
Trophy Games began production in August 2014 and will be filming in Kenya summer 2015. The film includes interviews with Duke University professor and National Geographic contributor Dr. Stuart Pimm, US Fish & Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe and other conservation experts. A number of anti-poaching and conservation organizations - such as Big Life Foundation, Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and Ol Pejeta Conservancy – have all agreed to participate in the making of the film by allowing the film crew to embed with their poaching patrol units.
The film crew will follow the wildlife rangers protecting the elephant population in Amboseli National Park and rangers that protect the world’s last three Northern White Rhinos in the wild. The film will also embed with an ex-ivory Somalian dealer in one of the world’s more prominent poaching communities to show firsthand the effects of the illegal ivory and rhino horn trade.
The "Trophy Games" crew consists of a small group of filmmakers that have all traveled the world filming for networks such as PBS, Discovery Channel and others. One of the documentary's directors, Jon Kasbe, was named the White House Press Student Videographer of the Year 2014 and has been nominated for an Emmy.
The documentary's writer and producer, Andrew Brown, has high goals for the film in regards to making a change.
"We have partnered up with organizations that employ local wildlife rangers in rural Kenya and work in the communities involved to bring awareness about how dangerous poaching is to the local economies and the country's heritage," Brown said. "Because we will be donating a significant portion of the profits back to these organizations, our film will be used by these organizations as a tool by offering free community screenings and the film has the ability to create reoccurring revenue for these organizations in the US through licensing, online downloads, and film festival earnings."
The film crew is fundraising the upfront traveling and filming costs in November through Kickstarter, an online crowd-funding platform supported by Amazon. The online crowd-funding campaign has a limited number of days for the crew to raise the money needed, otherwise, none of the funding supporters’ pledges are charged. To help reward their financial supporters, the crew offers a number of gifts in return to those that donate.
To watch the trailer for Trophy Games or for information about how you can donate to the fundraising campaign, please visit http://www.trophygamesfilm.com.
Andrew Brown, Knapsack Films, http://www.trophygamesfilm.com, +1 919-793-6601, [email protected]
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