One Lucky Elephant

One Lucky Elephant is an American documentary film directed by Lisa Leeman that premiered December 1, 2011 on OWN Oprah Winfrey Network as part of the OWN Documentary Club. The film focuses on the extraordinary humananimal bond between Circus Flora founder, Ivor David Balding, and Flora an endangered African elephant, and their journey to find her a permanent home that leads them to The Elephant Sanctuary Hohenwald. The film provides insightful research footage to further discussion of the humananimal bond as part of anthrozoology humananimal studies, a new academic field that examines the relationships between nonhuman and human animals.

Ivor David Balding as himself Flora the African Elephant as herself Laura Balding as herself Carol Buckley as herself Willie Theison as himselfOne Lucky Elephant was directed and cowritten by Lisa Leeman and produced and cowritten by Cristina Colissimo and produced by Jordana GlickFranzheim. The film was shot over ten years on location in St. Louis, Missouri, Zoo Miami in Florida, Pittsburgh Zoo amp PPG Aquarium in Pennsylvania and at The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. According to the director, the introduction to the characters came from, Miriam Cutler, a composer who specializes in docs and who coproduced and scored this film, has been the resident composer for Circus Flora since its early days. Miriam was fascinated watching Flora grow up in the circus, and when she heard that David Balding wanted to retire Flora his 18yearold African elephant, the star of his circus and sort of his surrogate daughter and send her back to Africa, she thought it would make a terrific film, and started calling documentary directors she knew. ........

Source: Wikipedia