“A Herd Of Orphans” documentary to screen locally

By Brian Varela
Courtesy of the Petersburg Pilot

Next week Kelly Bakos will be screening her award-winning documentary film, A HERD OF ORPHANS, which looks at the lives of young elephants who were abandoned when adult elephants in their herds fell victim to poachers in the African ivory trade.

The 90-minute documentary has been shown in film festivals across the world, including Estonia, Finland, Malaysia and China. Bakos has attended several of the festivals and won four Awards of Excellence from The Accolade Global Film Competition. A HERD OF ORPHANS won the Award of Excellence in Nature/Environment/Wildlife, Viewer Impact: Content/Message Delivery, Contemporary Issues/Awareness Raising and Women Filmmakers.

“I’m just thrilled the message is getting out there,” said Bakos in a prepared statement. “There are plenty of films out there already that show the absolute horror of poaching and the ivory trade. My film touches upon anti-poaching efforts, but the story is really about the elephants and their journey growing up in a usual herd. I wanted to make a film that shows the reality of poaching, but in an endearing way that gives viewers the chance to really get to know some of the elephants impacted by the ivory trade.”

In the film, Bakos looks at the lives and struggles of orphaned elephants as they’re coming of age without a herd. When poachers kill adult elephants for their ivory, the elephant calves are left homeless and unable to survive. Those that are fortunate enough to be rescued grow up in a surrogate herd made out of other orphaned elephants. The film follows young elephants in an orphanage in Zambia as they overcome their loss and learn to fend for themselves before being reintroduced into the wild.

The elephant orphanage in Bakos’ documentary is operated by Game Rangers International, which is a nonprofit organization that has rescued dozens of elephant calves and tackles ivory poaching head-on. Currently, Game Rangers International is raising 18 calves. Each elephant costs the organization approximately $35,000 a year, due to milk needs, veterinary care, surrogate parents and a team of specialists that teach skills to the elephants that would have otherwise been learned in the wild, according to Bakos.

“That’s a lot of overhead cost,” said Bakos in the statement. “And to think that these elephants come to the orphanage at a young age-sometimes when they are just a few months old-and they stay with the project until they are old enough to live on their own in the wild. That’s in excess of 10 or 12 years of care.”

A test version of the film was aired in Petersburg in early 2018. The final cut of the documentary, which is family-friendly, will screen on Feb. 28, at 7 P.M. in the Wright Auditorium. Admission is free, but Bakos will be taking donations and selling “swag” for Game Rangers International’s elephant orphanage and anti-poaching efforts.