“Last Days,” Oscar-winner (The Hurt Locker) Kathryn Bigelow’s PSA about elephant poaching, is now available online in conjunction with the launch of LASTDAYSOFIVORY.COM. The film and website aim to put the illegal ivory trade and the terrorists profiting from it out of business, in order to protect endangered elephants and innocent people. Of the project, Bigelow said, “An elephant disappears every 15 minutes. It is our hope that this film helps to bring an activist into existence at least that often.”
Bigelow added, “Last year I was made aware of the very real connection between elephant poaching and terrorism. For me it represented the diabolical intersection of two problems that are of great concern – species extinction and global terrorism. Both involve the loss of innocent life, and both require urgent action. To make a feature film about such a topic would likely take years during which more elephants would die, so instead I approached a team of fellow filmmakers and we made ‘Last Days’ as an animated piece, which we thought would give it a broader audience (besides, the internet is filled with graphic images of slaughtered elephants and yet the killing continues.) There are real things we can all do to stop wild elephants from disappearing from our world while cutting off funding for some of the world’s most notorious terrorist networks.”
The anti-poaching effort calls for an end to the killings, an end to trafficking in ivory, and an end to the demand for ivory. Bigelow’s three-minute film, written by Scott Z. Burns and made in collaboration with concept designer Samuel Michlap, head of layout Lorenzo Martinez and Duncan Studio, takes the viewer, in reverse chronology, through every step in the blood-curdling process, and, at its most disturbing, identifies the sale of ivory as a funding source for terrorist organizations like Boko Haram, the Lord’s Resistance Army and al-Shabab.
It is being distributed globally in partnership with WildAid, which focuses on reducing demand for endangered species products, and Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures. The site was created by Austin-based ad agency, Preacher.
