The Elephant Queen, an internationally acclaimed Kenyan Film, has launched a mobile cinema and conservation outreach initiative across Kenya. The outreach programme will begin in Mombasa, at Mikindani Primary School on Friday 5th November, 2021 at 7.30 pm.
The initiative aims to use the film to inspire Kenyans to appreciate and understand elephants and the environment.
The Elephant Queen, a family-friendly multi-award winning Kenyan feature documentary, was filmed in the greater Tsavo-Amboseli ecosystem. The film tells a stirring and intimate story of the most majestic and sentient animals in Africa, and stars the ultimate leading lady, Athena. Athena is an elephant matriarch who will do everything in her power to protect her family when they are forced to leave their waterhole.
The film, which celebrates Kenya’s extraordinary wildlife and biodiversity has won many accolades. These include the Cinema for Peace Award, the UN World Wildlife Day Biodiversity Award and Best Cinematography at DOC NYC.
The film was directed by Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone. Etienne Oliff is the Assistant Director of the film.
During filming and production, the filmmakers observed the poaching for ivory, the increasing human-wildlife conflict and the loss of elephant rangelands, convincing them that more needed to be done. That is when they came up with The Elephant Queen Outreach Program with the objective of using the film and associated resources to inspire and unite Kenyan youth towards an understanding and appreciation of elephants and wild spaces.
With the support of the BESTSELLER Foundation, in collaboration with the Kenyan Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), Victoria and Oliff led a creative team to create a toolbox of conservation education resources.
The created toolbox includes a series of 28 literacy based learn to read books based on the film’s wildlife characters. They will also be short elephant videos, colouring books, podcasts from the making of the film and inspirational theatre toolboxes for children of different ages. All this was designed to inspire young Kenyans towards careers in wildlife conservation and the natural sciences.
With the ongoing support of BESTSELLER Foundation and joined by Save the Elephants and Kivukoni International School, the concept of a Mobile Cinema was developed in English, Kiswahili and Maa.
The Elephant Queen Outreach team will make all information open-source, allowing other groups to benefit from the years of research that has gone into planning The Elephant Queen Mobile Cinema.