EARTH LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL’S GROUNDBREAKING INVESTIGATIVE OPERATION ‘GAME OVER’, IN AFRICA AND CHINA, TRIGGERED BY A LEAK RECEIVED THROUGH WILDLEAKS, FEATURED IN THE NETFLIX AND LEONARDO DICAPRIO PRODUCED DOCUMENTARY ‘THE IVORY GAME’
The Ivory Game
, one of the most important environmental documentaries of the decade, premiered at the Telluride and Toronto International Film Festivals 2016, features WildLeaks and Earth League International – ELI, as it reveals the dark world of the complex international ivory supply chain.
As a result of Operation GAME OVER, ELI published its powerful “Blending Ivory: Old Loopholes, New Hopes” investigative report in January 2016. Undercover footage from this investigation exposed the areas where illegal ivory opportunistically enters the legal ivory market, and where China’s legal trade system and legal businesses are exploited to launder illicit ivory onto the legal market. It is this footage that is presented in The Ivory Game film narrative.
Award-winning director Richard Ladkani and Academy Award® nominated director Kief Davidson filmed undercover for 16 months with ELI’s team of investigators, infiltrating and documenting the deep-rooted corruption at the heart of the global ivory trafficking crisis. The Ivory Game is a Netflix Documentary produced by Terra Mater Factual Studios and Vulcan Productions, in collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio.
In China, the legal ivory market provided a backdoor for illicit ivory to enter the legal market, with hundreds of tons of ivory flowing from Africa into China annually.
Directors Richard Ladkani and Kief Davidson
The Ivory Game filmmakers interweave the stories of multiple advocates fighting against both supply and demand. As suspenseful as any thriller, the film follows the Tanzanian task force leader, Elisifa Ngowi, hunting down the crime lord Shetani, AKA ‘the Devil’; and Mr. Andrea Crosta, investigating international ivory traffickers.
The lucrative ivory trade supports organized crime, facilitates corruption, and flows back to Africa where it enriches warlords and tempts impoverished soldiers into poaching. It has caused rampant poaching of elephants, leading to possible extinction with our lifetimes. The Ivory Game chronicles the incredibly vital battle to save the world’s elephants. The courage of the film’s elephant advocates makes for a pulse-racing adventure with real-life urgency.
Through this film, viewers will have a front row seat to the fight to bring down poachers, traffickers and corrupt government officials. Mr. Crosta hopes that viewers will “understand the magnitude and complexity of international ivory trafficking, and the undeniable role that China has in both the extinction and the survival of the elephants. They have the means to stop the slaughtering of elephants now, but only if they choose to act.”
The Ivory Game was shortlisted in the best feature doc category for the Oscars 2017, and won the Wildscreen Golden Panda Award and the Beijing International Film Festival 2017 in the Best International Feature Doc category.
Toronto Film Festival) from left: Richard Ladkani (Director), Kief Davidson (Director), Leonardo DiCaprio, Ted Sarandos (Netflix Chief Content Officer). © Netflix
