Tricontinental Film Festival – World Premiere, 2008
Honolulu International Film Festival – Silver Lei Award, 2009
San Luis Obispo International Film Festival – Best Documentary Feature, 2009
Pan African Film Festival – Director’s Award: Best Documentary Feature, 2009
IDFA – In Competition, 2008
Independent Lens series on PBS – Broadcast, 2009
Barbados International Film Festival – In Competition, 2008
Santa Fe Film Festival – Official Selection, 2008
The Backlot Festival, Suriname – Official Selection, 2008
Santa Barbara International Film Festival – Official Selection, 2009
Portland International Film Festival – Official Selection, 2009
Hot Docs “Doc Soup”; Toronto, ON, Canada – Official Selection, 2009
Big Sky Documentary Festival; Missoula, MT – Official Selection, 2009
ZagrebDox; Croatia – Official Selection, 2009
Sedona International Film Festival – Official Selection, 2009
Cleveland International Film Festival – In Competition, 2009
Cinema Planeta Festival; Cuernevaca, Mexico – In Competition, 2009
Filmfestivalen Vera; Mariehamn, Finland – Official Selection, 2009
D.C. Environmental Film Festival – Official Selection, 2009
Calgary International Film Festival; Canada – Official Selection, 2009
Wild Cinema; Namibia – Official Selection, 2009
International Film Festival Egypt – Official Selection, 2009
Environmental Film Festival at Yale University – In Competition, 2009
Boston International Film Festival – Official Selection, 2009
Full Frame Documentary Festival; North Carolina – Official Selection, 2009
Oxdox International Documentary Film Festival; UK – Official Selection, 2009
Planete Doc Review; Warsaw, Poland – In Competition, 2009
DOXA Documentary Film Festival; Vancouver, Canada – Official Selection, 2009
Berkshires International Film Festival – Official Selection, 2009
Cottonwood Creek Environmental Film Festival; California – Official Selection, 2009
Dutch Environmental Film Festival – Official Selection, 2009
Rodos International Film & Visual Arts Festival “Ecofilms”; Greece – Official Selection, 2009
Jerusalem International Film Festival; Israel – Official Selection, 2009
Planet IndigenUs Festival; Toronto, Canada – Official Selection, 2009
Globians Doc Fest Berlin; Germany – Official Selection, 2009
Tales From Planet Earth Film Festival; University of Wisconsin – Official Selection, 2009
Ojai-Ventura International Film Festival; Ojai, California – Official Selection, 2009
Southern Circuit – Tour of Independent Filmmakers; – Selected Director, 2009
American Conservation Film Festival; West Virginia – Official Selection, 2009
Cambofest, Cambodia – Official Selection, 2009
ReFrame Peterborough International Film Festival; Ontario, Canada – Official Selection, 2010
International Documentary Film Festival New Zealand DOCNZ – Official Selection, 2010
Documentary Edge Film Festival, New Zealand – Official Selection, 2010
Tallahassee Film Festival – Official Selection, 2010
London International Documentary Film Festival – Official Selection, 2010
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.