Saving Simia (Completed )

About the Film

The film will focus not on the Gorillas, but the people who live to protect them. Observational in style, the film will show the arduous, and often dangerous work they do (long treks through inhospitably dense and humid forest / the dismantling of deadly snares and traps / tracking and challenging poachers). Each team follows a different family 'group', named after the male silverback which heads each group, and the film will examine the extremely close bonds which have built up between 'Team Pablo' and the Gorillas they protect.

These relationships will form the main narrative of the film, through which the context of conflict which surrounds them will be explored. As we learn more and more about our closest living relatives, we learn also that their situation is becoming more and more desperate. With a range which spans 3 countries (Uganda, Rwanda, DRC), the Mountain Gorillas of the Virunga Volcanos live in one of the most volatile, and ecologically vulnerable, places on earth.Civil War, logging, deforestation, poaching, and hunting have all contributed to making Mountain Gorillas one of the most endangered species on the planet. With mobile phones, ipods, and computers now increasingly dependent on rare metals only found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the region has become a hotspot of conflict and corruption. Over 100 Rangers have been killed within the last ten years. With the 3 countries now pledging to work together to protect the Gorillas of the Virunga Volcanoes, can their fragile world be properly protected? With limited funding, and limited resources, what can the Rangers really do to stop armed militias from entering the National Parks? And with less than 750 left in the wild, is this too little, too late?