This Renowned Filmmaker Goes in Search of Africa's Elusive Ghost Elephants
National Geographic's Ghost Elephants is a feature documentary chronicling the search for Africa's most elusive elephant.
Directed, narrated, and written by legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog, Ghost Elephants follows National Geographic Explorer Steve Boyes, who is determined to prove these elephants exist.
The elephants are not exactly a myth, but they're aptly named ghost elephants because they're that elusive.
"These elephants live differently from almost any others on Earth. They inhabit highlands at roughly 4,000 feet, move mostly at night or in twilight to avoid people, and travel silently despite their large size," National Geographic wrote last month. "Boyes believes it's a behavioral adaptation forged by generations of violence. They're so adept that no one's certain if, over the past several decades, they left the region completely and have only recently returned, or if they were always here and simply hiding out. Either way, Boyes sees a conservation opportunity. If the ghost elephants can survive undisturbed for even a few years, they’ll slowly re-habituate to humans and revert to more typical elephant behavior."
Ghost Elephants had a nationwide theatrical release last month. The feature documentary airs for the first time on Saturday, March 7, and it streams the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
Herzog and Ariel León Isacovitch produced Ghost Elephants, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where Herzog received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.
National Geographic touts the film:
"In the mist-covered highlands of Angola, deep within its forests, a mystery endures: the elusive ghost elephants of Lisima, the potential living descendants of the largest land mammal ever recorded. Steve Boyes, conservation biologist and leader of the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project, is determined to prove their existence. "