Plot
Tony Fitzjohn (John Michie) has just come to work on Kora, a lion preserve, for two elderly brothers, George and Terrence Adamson (Ian Bannen). On his first day, Fitzjohn ignores George's advice not to run and is nearly mauled. Being informed this is how the last person to fill his position died, Fitzjohn writes the whole place off as crazy and decides to leave. After a last minute change of heart, and a lion cub brought in from a zoo for him to train and reintroduce into the wild, he discovers his life's true calling.
Years pass and Kora's lions are being picked off by herdsmen one by one with bullets and poison and the elephants and rhinos are being poached at an alarming rate for their tusks and horns. The Adamson brothers are expending all of their energies in protecting the wildlife but can hardly compete; as Fitzjohn observes “A ranger may make 800 shillings a month but a poacher will pay him 10,000 just to turn his back for a day”. The odds seem to be insurmountable as the poachers pile in and the animal death toll rises, while the local government decides that it does not really want a wildlife preserve at all.
Elsa the lioness was a female lion raised along with her sisters "Big One" and "Lustica" by game warden George Adamson and his wife Joy Adamson after they were orphaned at only a few days old. Though her two sisters eventually went to the Netherlands' Rotterdam Zoo, Elsa was trained by the Adamsons to survive on her own, and was eventually released into the wild.
Friederike Victoria "Joy" Adamson née Gessner, was a naturalist, artist and author. Her book, Born Free, describes her experiences raising a lion cub named Elsa. Born Free was printed in several languages, and made into an Academy Award-winning movie of the same name. In 1977, she was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art.
Born Free is a 1966 British drama film starring the real-life couple Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers as Joy and George Adamson, another real-life couple who raised Elsa the Lioness, an orphaned lion cub, to adulthood, and released her into the wilderness of Kenya. The film was produced by Open Road Films Ltd. and Columbia Pictures. The screenplay, written by blacklisted Hollywood writer Lester Cole, was based upon Joy Adamson's 1960 non-fiction book Born Free. The film was directed by James Hill and produced by Sam Jaffe and Paul Radin. Born Free, and its musical score by John Barry, won numerous awards, as well as the title song with lyrics by Don Black and sung by Matt Monro.
Hluhluwe–Imfolozi Park, formerly Hluhluwe–Umfolozi Game Reserve, is the oldest proclaimed nature reserve in Africa. It consists of 960 km² of hilly topography 280 kilometres (170 mi) north of Durban in central KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and is known for its rich wildlife and conservation efforts. Operated by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, the park is the only state-run park in KwaZulu-Natal where each of the big five game animals can be found.
Terrence Higgins Trust is a British charity that campaigns about and provides services relating to HIV and sexual health. In particular, the charity aims to end the transmission of HIV in the UK; to support and empower people living with HIV, to eradicate stigma and discrimination around HIV, and to promote good sexual health.
Ian Edmund Bannen was a Scottish actor with a long career in film, on stage, and on television. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), the first Scottish actor to receive the honour, as well as two BAFTA Film Awards for his performances in Sidney Lumet's The Offence (1973) and John Boorman's Hope and Glory (1987).
George Alexander Graham Adamson MBE, also known as the Baba ya Simba, was a Kenyan wildlife conservationist and author. He and his wife, Joy, were depicted in the film Born Free and best-selling book with the same title, which is based on the true story of Elsa the Lioness, an orphaned lioness cub they had raised and later released into the wild. Several other films have been made based on the Adamsons' lives.
Meru National Park is a Kenyan national park located east of Meru, 350 km (220 mi) from Nairobi. Covering an area of 870 km2 (340 sq mi), it is one best known national parks in Kenya. Rainfall in this area is abundant with 635–762 mm (25.0–30.0 in) in the west of the park and 305–356 mm (12.0–14.0 in) in the east. The rainfall results in tall grass and lush swamps.
George of the Jungle is a 1997 American comedy film directed by Sam Weisman and based on Jay Ward and Bill Scott’s 1967 American animated television series of the same name, which is a spoof of the fictional character Tarzan, created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The film was produced by Walt Disney Pictures and was released in theatres throughout the United States and Canada on July 16, 1997. It was later aired on Disney Channel in the United States on December 5, 1998. It stars Brendan Fraser as the title character, a primitive man who was raised by animals in an African jungle, Leslie Mann as Ursula, George's love interest, and Thomas Haden Church as her treacherous former fiancé. The film grossed $174 million worldwide. A sequel, George of the Jungle 2, was released direct-to-video on October 21, 2003.
Mkomazi National Park is located in northeastern Tanzania on the Kenyan border, in Kilimanjaro Region and Tanga Region. It was established as a game reserve in 1951 and upgraded to a national park in 2006.
John Michie is a Scottish television and film actor, known for his roles as DI Robbie Ross in the STV detective drama series Taggart, as Karl Munro in Coronation Street from 2011–2013 and his role as CEO Guy Self in Casualty and Holby City.
Kora National Park is located in Tana River County, Kenya. The park covers an area of 1,788 square kilometres. It is located 125 kilometres east of Mount Kenya. The park was initially gazetted as a nature reserve in 1973. It was gazetted as a national park in 1989, following the murder of George Adamson by poachers.
Lamb is a 1985 Irish drama film, directed by Colin Gregg and starring Liam Neeson, Hugh O'Conor and Ian Bannen. The film is based on the novel by Bernard MacLaverty, who also wrote the screenplay. It was released in Ireland on 10 October 1986.
Cheetah, also known as Cheetah and Friends, is a 1989 American family drama film from Walt Disney Pictures starring Keith Coogan and Lucy Deakins. This motion picture was loosely based on Alan Caillou's novel The Cheetahs. It was shot in Nairobi, Kenya. This motion picture features the phrase "Hakuna matata" which became famous when Disney released The Lion King five years later.
Anthony Raymond Fitzjohn, OBE was a British conservationist who worked extensively with George Adamson at Kora in Africa. In recognition of his service to wildlife conservation, Fitzjohn was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2006.
Mervyn Hugh Cowie, was a conservationist who pioneered wildlife protection and the development of tourism throughout East Africa.
Christian the lion was a lion born in captivity and purchased by Australian John Rendall and Anthony "Ace" Bourke from Harrods department store in London in 1969. He was later reintroduced to the African wild by conservationist George Adamson. One year after Adamson released Christian to the wild, his former owners decided to go looking for him to see whether Christian would remember them. He did, and with him were two lionesses who accepted the men as well.
Supercub was a male lion that was adopted as a cub from the Nairobi National Park Orphanage near Nairobi, Kenya. In 1972, Supercub was a pride member with Christian the lion and other lions being cared for by conservationist George Adamson in the Kora National Reserve in Kenya. The lion, whose personality was described as "boisterous" and "extroverted", was dubbed Supercub by Adamson.
Living Free is a 1972 British drama film, written by Millard Kaufman and directed by Jack Couffer. It is starred by Nigel Davenport, Susan Hampshire and Geoffrey Keen. This film is a sequel to Born Free (1966), which was based on the 1960 book of the same name by Joy Adamson. The film Living Free is also based on a book by Joy Adamson; however, it is not based on the book of the same name but is instead based on the third book in the series, Forever Free. Singer Julie Budd sang the title song, composed by Sol Kaplan and Freddy Douglass.
Big Life Foundation is non-profit conservation organization focused on preserving the wildlife and habitats of the Amboseli-Tsavo-Kilimanjaro ecosystem of East Africa through community-based and collaborative strategies.
