Ghost Elephants

12:30pm | SIFF Film Center 

Presented by Grand Illusion Cinema

For over a decade, Dr. Steve Boyes, conservation biologist and National Geographic Explorer, has been in search of a mysterious, elusive herd of ghost elephants in the highlands of Angola, deep within its forests. Acclaimed director Werner Herzog follows Boyes on an epic journey as he sets out with some of the best master trackers in the world, in pursuit of an animal long believed to be a myth.

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In the mist-covered highlands of Angola, a mystery endures: the elusive ghost elephants of Lisima, the potential living descendants of the largest land mammal ever recorded. Steve Boyes is determined to prove their existence.

In order to find the ghost 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.

Stick around after the movie for a pre-recorded Q&A with Werner Herzog, Steve Boyes, Producer Ariel Leon Isacovitch and Executive Producer Brian Nugent, moderated by filmmaker Kirsten Johnson.

“Ghost Elephants resides in the intersection of science and lyrical reverie — Herzog’s treasured terrain.” — Lisa Kennedy, The New York Times

4/4 stars! “It’s a portrait of obsession that, while gentler than some of Herzog’s other works, is mesmerizing from the first moment to the last, yet another title of note in what remains one of the most incredible filmographies of our time.” — Peter Sobczynski, RogerEbert.com