One Lucky Elephant
Director: Lisa Leeman
Producers: Cristina Colissimo, Jordana Glick-Franzheim
Category: Environment; Popular Culture
Total Running Time: 82 min.
Release Date: 2010
Website: http://oneluckyelephant.com
Synopsis
Where does an elephant go after a life in the circus? Sixteen years have passed since circus producer David Balding adopted Flora, the orphaned baby African elephant he lovingly raised as part of his family and made the star of his show. As Flora approaches adulthood, he realizes that she is not happy performing. Ultimately, David must face the difficult truth that the circus is no place for Flora. She needs to be with other elephants. The road to Flora’s retirement, however, is a difficult and emotional journey which tests their bond in unexpected ways. Ten years in the making, One Lucky Elephant
explores the consequences of keeping wild animals in captivity, while never losing sight of the delicate love story at its heart.
The circus is a well-known and time-honored tradition in America and around the world, but we don’t all realize the harm that is rendered to animals trained to perform in what is not their natural habitat. This film documents efforts being made in regions in America to ensure that elephants are given a safe and happy life—away from circuses and zoos.
Trailer
About the Filmmakers
LISA LEEMAN writes, directs, produces, and edits documentary films. Her first feature doc, Metamorphosis: Man into Woman, won the Filmmakers Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival, and garnered high ratings on its broadcast on PBS’ acclaimed series POV. Other credits include co-directing and editing Who Needs Sleep? with renowned cinematographer/director Haskell Wexler (Sundance Film Festival), and directing the recent feature doc Out of Faith (PBS). Leeman is currently co-directing, with Paola di Florio, a feature documentary about the famed swami Paramahansa Yogananda, and is co-producing Crazy Wisdom: The Life & Times of Chogyam Trunga, which profiles the influential and provocative Tibetan Buddhist teacher and his deep impact on the West. Leeman has served as a judge at the Sundance, AFI and Los Angeles Film Festivals; the president of the International Documentary Association, and on the boards of the IDA and the National Coalition of Independent Public Broadcasting Producers. She writes articles about the ethics of documentary filmmaking, and on the international documentary scene. She is on the faculty of University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, and has taught documentary filmmaking in Beijing, China, and Amman, Jordan. She spent a decade editing social-issue documentaries, including the acclaimed Made in LA.
CRISTINA COLISSIMO is a filmmaker, screenwriter and producer whose love of storytelling comes from a childhood populated with exotic characters and wild animals at the zoo her father founded in Miami. Cristina is currently adapting the memoir Where War Lives: A Journey into the Heart of War by Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Watson and developing a mini-series based on the book Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations by Georgina Howell. Colissimo’s feature screenplay Modern English, a remake of the 1938 Academy Award-nominated Merrily We Live, is being produced by Jordana Glick-Franzheim and Nan Morales. Cristina is also developing a romance-empowerment reality series based on best-selling book The Surrendered Single, and has been asked to write a memoir about growing up at the zoo. While producing the feature documentary One Lucky Elephant, Cristina co-founded Ahali Elephants, a nonprofit to raise the funds needed to relocate Flora, the African elephant, to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, and provide an endowment for her ongoing care.
JORDANA GLICK-FRANZHEIM most recently associate produced the feature film Extraordinary Measures, starring Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser for CBS Films; Youth in Revolt for the Weinstein Company starring Michael Cera; Management, starring Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn; The Marc Pease Experience, directed by Todd Louiso and starring Ben Stiller and Jason Schwarzman; and Freedom Writers, written and directed by Richard LaGravenese and starring Hilary Swank. Her other producing credits include the German language film Diamonds and the documentary on Wolfgang Petersen, Shooting in the Line of Fire. Glick-Franzheim began her career at Walt Disney Studios and Neue Constantin Films in Munich.