The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today the world premiere of Kathryn Bigelow’s PSA Last Days followed by a panel to be presented on Saturday, September 27 at 6PM at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. Bigelow will moderate the panel, The Crisis in Elephant Poaching, with participants Peter Knights, Julieta V. Lozano, K’naan Warsame and Peter Godwin. Tickets for the event are free and will be distributed one hour prior to the start time; visit filmlinc.com/nyfff for more information.
Director of the New York Film Festival Kent Jones said, “Kathryn showed us Last Days and I was floored – in three minutes, the viewer feels the horrors of elephant poaching on a global scale and gains a clear, even vivid understanding of the economic, moral and political issues involved. A powerfully concise piece of work, and we’re proud to be hosting its world premiere and providing a forum in which this urgent issue can be illuminated.”
On the origins of the project, Kathryn Bigelow said “A year ago I had a fortuitous meeting with both Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. Chelsea had just returned from Sub-Saharan Africa where poachers killed herds of elephants by cyanide poisoning. After our conversation I felt compelled to enter this space, encourage a dialogue, raise awareness. Killing for ivory by organized syndicates was now being carried out on an industrialized scale. Working with the writer, Scott Z Burns, we set out to connect the dots between ivory trinkets purchased at markets in China and elsewhere and the terrorist nightmares we see on the nightly news.”
In 1989, the international trade in ivory was banned and poaching went down. But with the rapid economic growth of consuming countries in Asia and some legal sales the slaughter of African elephants has escalated again in recent years. Between 2010 and 2012, an estimated 100,000 elephants were poached for their ivory with only around 400,000 left. The coalition of independent organizations that has joined in a common effort to put an end to elephant poaching takes a three-pronged approach, calling for an end to the killings, an end to trafficking in ivory, and an end to the demand for ivory. Kathryn Bigelow’s three-minute film, made in collaboration with concept designer Samuel Michlap, head of layout Lorenzo Martinez and Duncan Studio, takes us, 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 will be distributed globally in partnership with WildAid, which focuses on reducign demand for endangered species products. Last Days will be presented twice, followed by a panel discussion moderated by the filmmaker. The event is free to the public and tickets will be available at the box office an hour prior to the start time at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street.