A young Nepalese man struggles to protect the wildlife and natural habitat of his country.
Synopsis
A young Nepalese man struggles to protect the wildlife and natural habitat of his country.
This is the first short documentary film in an anticipated series featuring idealists in action.
This documentary follows Manoj Gautam, a 26 year old Nepalese man on a passionate quest to protect animals and wildlife from cruelty and extinction. As a child he was inspired by the work of Jane Goodall, and has since become her close friend and protégé. He founded Nepal’s first wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center and Roots & Shoots branch. With minimal resources and no formal training he’s creating a network of allies across the country, busting smugglers, protecting fragile eco systems, and rescuing abused animals.
For 11 days filmmaker Gabriel Diamond followed Manoj as he traversed the country, monitoring the training and abuse of baby elephants for PETA in Chitwan National Forest, tracking down owl, eagle, and leopard smugglers, evading their death threats, rescuing cobras from snake charmers, confronting abusive zookeepers, creating a vulture eco tourism reserve, planning a massive alien plant species eradication effort, freeing pythons, teaching Tibetan refugees, and continually finding new ways to improve conditions for plants, animals, and people in his lawless and poverty stricken country.
Director’s Statement
When I was a teenager and people asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I’d say “I want to save the world.” But at some point along the way I stopped believing that was possible. I first met Manoj Gautam in 2008 when I taught a filmmaking workshop to him and his friends from Roots & Shoots in Nepal. I was struck by his renegade, guerrilla style combined with vision, commitment, and charisma.He had rescued two leopard cubs from being killed and was keeping them in a bedroom in an apartment in Katmandu. With no resources, he was scrambling to find them a safe home. (Eventually he was able to get them haven in an Indian zoo.) I had a powerful feeling that he would make an important impact on his country, the people, the animals, and environment. He was twenty-four.Something about him reminded me of the youthful idealism I had lost so long ago.
I knew I wanted to go back to tell his story someday. When the opportunity arose in January 2011, I was thrilled.
As a filmmaker, using the medium as a cultural anthropologist, and to satisfy my own curiosity of how one person can create meaningful change, I am compelled to follow Manoj’s story. He is young, wild, and still finding his way, learning diplomacy, fascinated by wild animals and still discovering how he can be of service to them and avoid being their captor. He’s learning to delegate, understanding that the broadest change happens when culture changes, and that ultimately it is others who must do the work. Overwhelmed by problems, pollution, poverty, ignorance, the phrase he said throughout our trip was “slowly, slowly.” He is in it for the long haul.
I filmed in a verité, fly on the wall style. From confronting abusive zookeepers, rescuing cobras from snake charmers, observing the abuse of baby elephants and reporting to PETA, (and much more) I am amazed by what transpired in those 11 days.
I hope that Manoj’s story has the power to inspire other’s to pursue their dreams in spite of obstacles, be they poverty, adversity, bureaucracy, or doubt.
Press Kit
Travel Journal
Crew Bios
director | cinematographer | narrator
Gabriel Diamond
Gabriel got his big start making movies at age thirteen working at a cable TV station in Oakland, CA. Now he makes documentaries around the world on educational reform, youth activism, human rights, poverty alleviation, and social and environmental justice.He studied theatre at Trinity Repertory Conservatory in Providence, Rhode Island and majored in Visual Media at New College of California in San Francisco.
After co-founding The Factory, an Emmy award-winning production company and learning lab for Bay Area youth, he taught video production at San Francisco State University, led media workshops for teachers and students internationally, and helped develop the National Academy Foundation’s video production curriculum.
His first feature film LESS (lessmovie.com) is a narrative about a man who has chosen to live on the streets of San Francisco. He shot and acted in How To Cheat (howtocheatfilm.com) which won best performance and premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival.
He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and one year old daughter.
executive producer
Gary Kreitzer
Gary Kreitzer is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego and the University of San Francisco School of Law. He has been employed as an attorney for a nationwide real estate development company and an alternative energy producer. He is also the co-founder of two NYSE traded companies and is currently the Executive Vice President, General Counsel and a Director of BioMed Realty Trust. He owns and manages an organic farm and a vineyard in San Diego, California and is active in educational, environmental and health care organizations in his community.
producer
Vika Golovanova
Vika was born in Odessa, Ukraine. She moved to United States in 1998 and following her interest in Art and Business enrolled in Visual Arts and Business programs at University of San Diego. Working with different mediums – painting, sculpture and photography she leaned that every medium offer unique perspectives of expression. After graduating from University of San Diego Vika went to work in the corporate world and continued making art. Filmmaking entered her world quite unexpectedly – from inspiration. She believes that film has a tremendous power in delivering the story and reaching wide audience. Her current interest is how perceptions and beliefs shape what we think is possible for us.
editor
Jason Zeldes
Jason Zeldes fell in love with film at an early age back in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and watched movie voraciously his entire childhood. This love grew into a hobby of filmmaking and eventually led him westward to the USC School of the Cinematic Arts, where Jason studied film editing and documentary filmmaking. Since then, Jason has worked in post-production on several documentary films, most notably with Patrick Creadon (I.O.U.S.A. and Wordplay) on last spring’s CNN special: I.O.U.S.A. Solutions, as well as producing and editing behind-the-scenes content for indie-bands and musicians.