Documentary filmmaker Jon Kasbe (Nascent) walks
a difficult path in his award-winning film, When
Lambs Become Lions. How to do you tell a story about a man who
is considered by many as being vile; despicable?
Oscilloscope Laboratories announced this past week
that both DVD and Blu-ray editions of his heartbreaking elephant poaching
story, which opened at the Tribeca Film Festival in the spring of 2018 and then
spent a year-and-a-half on the road pulling in awards and critical raves, will
be available on Apr. 28.
The film did have an ever-so-brief arthouse run late
last year, which yields an ARR of 158 days.
As if things weren’t bad enough in Kenya, with a
famine-inducing locust plague currently in progress and Somali “land pirates,”
like Al-Shabaab, invading the lucrative tourist areas in search of kidnap
victims, and worse, martyrs, you have ivory poachers such as “X” (his shameful
name is not mentioned). With ivory a
lucrative cash business on the black-market (especially the cash-rich China
market), “X” makes a nice living … what he does makes him vile; despicable.
We are also introduced to his “cousin,” Asan, a
former elephant poacher who has become a park ranger. He has the best line in the film, “Better to
kill the poacher and save the elephant” … we don’t actually see any poachers
being hustled off into the bush to be dealt with. However, you get the feeling that a few have
“gone missing.”
In any case, Asan suddenly finds a return to his
past sins very inviting since the government of Kenya hasn’t paid him in
months. He is starving. The film was shot in 2017, so if it was bad
then, we honestly can’t imagine how bad things are for the people of Kenya and
the poor elephants (and other wild creatures) in early 2020. No tourists, no money … only death and
despair.
Filmmaker Jon Kasbe is able to get both sides of the
story (which is, dangerous in and of itself) and mercifully we are not witness
to any human or elephant slaughters.
Instead, When Lambs Become Lions is a
gut-wrenching wakeup call to the West, but in an all too real heart-breaking
way, the call is likely to be unanswered, even with films such as this … but
there is always hope.
When Lambs Become Lions is
presented in Swahili with optional English subtitles.
Bonus features include a video session with
filmmaker Jon Kasbe and footage of from the Zurich Film Festival.
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