Milking the Rhino Director: David E. Simpson, USA, 2008, 83 minutes
Saturday May 23 | 7:00PM | Pacific Cinémathèque
A ferocious kill on the Serengeti… dire warnings about endangered species… These clichés of nature documentaries ignore a key feature of the landscape: villagers just off-camera, who navigate the dangers and costs of living with wildlife on a daily basis. When seen at all, rural Africans are often depicted as the problem; they poach animals and encroach on habitat. They spoil our myth of wild Africa.
Milking the Rhino tells a more nuanced tale of human-wildlife coexistence in post-colonial Africa. The Maasai tribe of Kenya and Namibia’s Himba, two of Earth’s oldest cattle cultures, are in the midst of upheaval. Emerging from a century of ‘white man conservation,’ which turned their lands into game reserves and fueled resentment towards wildlife, Himba and Maasai communities are now vying for a piece of the wildlife-tourism pie.
Community-based conservation, which tries to balance the needs of wildlife and people, has been touted by environmentalists as ‘win-win.’ The reality is more complex. “We never used to benefit from these animals,” a Maasai host of a community eco-lodge explains. “Now we milk them like cattle!” His neighbor disagrees: “A rhino means nothing to me! I can’t kill it for meat like a cow.” And when drought decimates the grass shared by livestock and wildlife, the community’s commitment to conservation is sorely tested.
Charting the collision of ancient ways with Western expectations, Milking the Rhino tells intimate, hopeful, and heartbreaking stories of people facing deep cultural change.
Director’s Biography
David E. Simpson is a producer, director and editor who has crafted award-winning films and television for twenty-five years. David co-produced and edited Forgiving Dr. Mengele which won the 2006 Slamdance Grand Jury Prize for Documentaries. He directed Refrigerator Mothers, which won top honors at the Florida, Indiana, and Sedona film festivals and aired nationally on the PBS series POV. David produced and directed Halsted Street, USA, a multi-award-winning snapshot of America through the prism of one multi-cultural street. He co-produced and directed When Billy Broke His Head… a documentary about disability culture, which garnered international praise including a jury award at Sundance, and major prizes at a dozen other festivals. His experimental narrative, Dante’s Dream, a re-working of Dante’s cosmology, earned five first-place festival awards.
