Ghost Elephants

Herzog sets out with some of the best mastertrackers in the world, in pursuit of an animal long believed to be a myth. In the mist-covered highlands of Angola, deep within its forests, a mystery endures: the elusive ghost elephants of Lisima, the potential living descendants of the largest land mammal ever recorded. Steve Boyes, conservation biologist and leader of the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project, is determined to prove their existence.

In order to find these elusive elephants, Boyes and fellow National Geographic Explorer Kerllen Costa have teamed up with three KhoiSan master trackers: Xui, Xui Dawid, and Kobus. Refugees from a war-torn past who have faced considerable marginalization in southern Africa, the trackers return to their ancestral lands to succeed where advanced technology could not.

Werner Herzog: "After meeting Steve Boyes, an unexpected project that felt like the hunt for Moby Dick, the White Whale, came at me with great urgency. Like many of my films, this is an exploration of dreams, of imagination — weighed against reality. The film took me to what the local tribesmen call the 'Land at the End of the Earth.'"

Tuesday May 5, cellist/composer Ernst Reijseger will be present for a Q&A to talk about his longtime collaboration with Herzog and work on Ghost Elephants.

Also currently screening at Eye; Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes en Kaspar Hauser – Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle.