On December 31, 2016 China announced it was shutting down the world’s largest ivory market. Although vast profits for the ivory trade had been generated for years by China, the Chinese government had long refused to admit it had any responsibility to help prevent the extinction of elephants. The myth they wanted to believe was that their highly-prized ivory was coming only from elephants that had died naturally. However, the sad reality was that all across Africa, thousands of elephants were being slaughtered for their tusks.
In their harrowing and devastating documentary, The Ivory Game, Richard Ladkani and Kief Davidson went to Africa and China to see firsthand. Working with undercover agents to raise awareness to protect elephants, the footage the duo was able to obtain provides a stark revelation into the illegal ivory trade. I caught up with Ladkani and Davidson to talk about how they put their film together.
Awards Daily: How did the whole idea for The Ivory Game come about?
Richard Ladkani: It started almost four years ago, January 2, 2013. There was a New York Times article that I read called The Price of Ivory where it talked about the possible extinction of elephants within ten years. That’s where it started and it got my attention because I asked myself, why didn’t I know about it.
I called Kief and asked if he had heard about it and he said he hadn’t. So, we started researching and got curious about it. It took off from there because we saw there was a ton of press about it, but it hadn’t reached the mainstream media and nothing was being done about it. The public didn’t really know about it. We both thought time was running out, elephants are about to become extinct and no one is talking about it. So, we choose to make it from there to make a difference and raise awareness and get people out there.
AD: Like you, I love elephants, but why didn’t we know about this sooner?
Kief: I think a big part of it is to do with the press and the way they’ve been covering it over the years. For the amount of devastation and the sheer mass numbers of elephants that have been killed, this is something that should have been in the world’s press over and over and over again. I think there’s been a lack of awareness on the issue.
On the broader level, I think there’s been a lack of awareness in China, in particular, up until recently, that elephants are getting killed for their tusks. I think there’s been a belief in society that’s ingrained in their culture for centuries, that it’s such a status symbol for wealth, that most of the ivory came from elephants who died naturally. A movement now has really started because people are becoming aware of it. You’re seeing iconic images where over 100 tons of ivory was burnt, that sent a huge message to the world and people in China. I think there are several things that laid the groundwork for the ultimate China ban that happened in December, but a large part of it is because awareness started to happen in China.
That ban took us all by surprise because we didn’t think it was going to happen so fast.
AD: When you’re making a documentary like this, did you have the idea laid out, or did it come together in editing?
RL: We went into this not really knowing what kind of film we were going to make. We were open to anything. We had all the ingredients for a great film. We had this iconic species, the elephant. We had people risking their lives to save them. We had the African cartels, and the Chinese mafia, and guns. We had many ways to tell the story.
As soon as we got into the story, we didn’t want to look at the obvious choice, the conservationists. We were looking at the behind the scenes aspects, and who is fighting in this war that we are not hearing about in the press or on Google. We quickly came across people who you’d describe as spies. They worked under the radar using names like Alpha, Beta, and Omega. When you met them, they’d vet you, and they’d know more about you than you knew about them.
It was interesting. As soon as we got access to them, which took over a year and half of talking to them to gain their trust, they let us into their world. We found ourselves in this spy thriller. They were going in for arrests, the police were standing by, they were using code names. It was the stuff Hollywood films are made of.
It turned out to be much like that because it was how the atmosphere was like, and we kept the camera rolling at all times.
AD: You shot in both Africa and China. Was that always going to be the case?
KR: We knew that our main destination was going to be Africa. We knew we wanted to get into Asia. Hong Kong was discussed immediately because most of the ivory was being sold there. China was much more daunting because you can’t easily work there, it’s all very hidden there. But it was due to some of the activists who we were working with that made that possible for us to document their journey.
Some unexpected things started to happen through their journey that we realized it was bigger than just China. Vietnam, we discovered, was a large hub that people were not aware of. That led to us investigating Vietnam. These transfer hubs are going to be important in the fight in the future, especially now that China has banned it. 90% of the world’s ivory goes through China. There are still transit hubs that could be an issue.
We knew largely that we would shoot where the largest problems were.
RL: Let’s not forget Shitani. That story arc came out of nowhere. It took us seven months to even get to Tanzania, and get the force on board. Once we were in, they told us about Shitani, this big guy who runs all of East Africa’s ivory trade. We asked what does his name mean, and they said, The Devil. [grim laughter]. We went in not knowing what was going to happen and filmed the hunt for Shitani. Will we see him? Will we come across someone who ever witnessed him doing what he does? By the end, it was a black hole, but then one day, we were shooting in Hong Kong. We got this call telling us that if we could be in Tanzania within 24 hours, we could film the arrest of Shitani.
We hopped on the next plane, it took us 22 hours and we lost half of our luggage, but once we arrived, two hours later we filmed his arrest.
KR: Shitani is the perfect example of when you’re making a film of not being sure how your film is going to end. There was a lot of anxiety around this idea of how it was going to end? We weren’t sure who the bad guys were. Once bad guys were identified, we weren’t sure if we were going to get them caught. It was this whole thing where perseverance and sticking to it for many years ultimately led to us being able to capture that.
It was also luck, where the Tanzania police were in the right place at the right time to capture Shitani. You can imagine, how are we going to close this hole where we wondered how we’d get the villain who we had set up in this story, was never captured. Then that means that whole story line probably wasn’t going to make it into the film. So, when it happened we jumped for joy.
AD: It was an absolute thriller. The other moment was when the camera was discovered on an undercover journalist. Was there any other scary moment?
RL: I think what you just said, that was the scariest moment. You’re in China. You don’t have a permit, they don’t know you’re there and you’re filming undercover. You’re already around dangerous people, criminals who are connected to the Beijing police and other things. Suddenly, the cover is blown on an investigator, and you don’t know how to handle it because the cavalry isn’t going to come and rescue you.
You’re not in the U.S. where you can call the police because they were with the police.
This was really bad news. We had to abandon the mission, and Omega told us, “Get out of the country as fast as you can. Hide the footage. Hide your drives. Destroy your sim cards.” That scared the shit out of us, and so we scrambled for the airport and left. It’s something that could have gone very wrong and ended badly for us.
On the other hand, these people are your protection as well. We followed these people who risked their lives, but we still had to keep ourselves safe. We told them they were in charge and we were just there to observe. We wanted them to make it out alive, but we needed them to protect us, and it was a two-way street, and you hoped it all went well.
AD: What’s the best thing about The Ivory Game being on Netflix?
KR: We decided very early on in the thinking where the film would live and where we’d have the most impact. We couldn’t wait as long as you normally wait to have it come out by country. It was important for us to get it out there as soon as we could.
We sold it prior to any film festival screening. Once we premiered in Telluride and Toronto, we were able to launch it a few months later.
Netflix has been great because they’re in over 100 countries and in over 90 million households, and that’s a massive reach that can hit in one day.
Our ultimate goal was to see China ban ivory, and they have, and seeing a result like that was great. It’s not going to all be resolved overnight, but it’s an incredible step and I think Netflix was an important part in getting the film out to raise awareness.
For more about The Ivory Game visit: https://theivorygame.com/about-film. The Ivory Game is streaming on Netflix