The  adventurous  journey  of  a  rare white  lion  cub, who  rises  above many  challenges  to become one of the most powerful and revered lions in all of Africa. 
According to the legend of the Shangaan, white lions are the messengers of the gods, but it has been years since one has been seen in their remote African valley.
When a white lion is miraculously born into that valley, a young Shangaan named Gisani, finds himself destined to protect this rare and magnificent creature at all costs.   
This  young  lion,  whom  will  be  known  as  Letsatsi,  is  cast  from  his  pride  and  forced  to  embark upon a perilous journey of survival. 
Close to starvation, Letsatsi befriends Nkulu, an older lion and together they learn how to survive in the harsh African wilderness Gisani, who is watching over Letsatsi, takes a job as a tracker with a local hunter, who has his sights set on leading the hunt for this rare and magnificent white lion. Gisani, guided by fate, believes that he must find a way to prevent this tragedy from happening.
When Nkulu is killed by a farmer, Letsatsi is forced once again to survive on his own. After many  trials  and  tribulations  he  finally  learns  to  hunt  by  himself  and  grows  into  a magnificent adult. 
But  before  he  can  take  over  a  pride  of  his  own,  Letsatsi  and  Gisani  must  face  their greatest  challenge  -  the  trophy  hunter-  for whom  legends  are worthless  and  rare  skins Priceless

A DREAM THAT BECAME A FILM…
WHITE LION was shot on  location, at The Kingdom of  the White Lion, an enterprise 50 miles  outside  of  the  city  of  Johannesburg,  along  the  Crocodile  River,  established especially for this film. 
This  marks  the  first  production  - entirely  about  lions  -  starring  'real'  lions  from  South Africa.  "To date most  lion pictures  shot  in South Africa, have  seen  the  import of  trained lions,"  says  Producer  and  Lion  Wrangler,  Kevin  Richardson.  "Our  lions  look  great… they're lean, mean and heroic - not spoiled, fat and lazy."   
The picture  is  the  long-time dream of one of  the owners of  the Johannesburg Lion Park, Rodney  Fuhr,  who  served  as  Executive  Producer  alongside  his  wife  Ilana.  Fuhr independently  funded  the movie,  and  filming was  approached  in  a  fairly  unconventional manner.  Richardson  recalled, "WHITE  LION  has  been  a  long  time  coming  and  was Rodney's vision, dating back to the early eighties.  His original idea was to follow a tawny (normal  colored) male  lion  cub  from  infancy  to  adulthood.   Since  then,  it  has  obviously progressed to the stage where we are following a white lion and his journey.  We switched from a  tawny  - probably  to make our  lives a  little bit more difficult and more challenging! 
But, such an exquisite beast certainly makes for a much more powerful story.  For me, the beauty  of  this  film  is  its  reality  component  and  inherent  simplicity.    I  love  the  fact  that Rodney's story never allowed  it  to become  too complicated and was always anchored  in the  realms of what  could happen  in  the wilds of Africa.   So although WHITE LION  is a fictional  feature  film,  and  we  have  taken  license  on  some  issues,  it  is  not  beyond  the scope of what could take place in the wild. The reality of what this little white lion endures, is quite real." 
"In  recent  times,  films  of  this  nature,  which  are  basically  fictional  animal  films,  have enjoyed great success," observed Director/Cinematographer Michael Swan. "March of the Penguins  is  a  good  example  of  this,  and  our  movie  is  very  much  of  the  same  cloth, although not a documentary.   WHITE LION also has a parallel human element, which  is complimentary  to  the  lions.    It's  about  the  life  of  a  lion  (Letsatsi)  from  birth  to  his  final triumph.  A story of conflict and how our hero, Letsatsi overcomes it, just as a human story would be, but  in  this  instance, about  lions. That's  the challenge  for us all,  to  tell a story without  featuring  too many people, with  lions as  the main  characters.  It's a  classic  tale, with similarities  to Jean Jacques-Annaud's acclaimed The Bear.   The parameters, set by Rodney  Fuhr,  were  stringent  and  incredibly  difficult  to  achieve.  We  had  to  represent authentic wild  lion  behavior  and  the  challenge was  to  tell  the  story  entirely  through  the action of  the  lions.  It  isn't The Lion King. No  lips move and we aren't  relying entirely on animatronics,  puppets,  or  visual  effects."    Indeed,  many  people  have  suggested  that  WHITE LION is the real-life version of The Lion King.
WHITE  LION  features  a minimum  of  human  beings  -  criteria  that  was  put  in  place  to ensure the story was told entirely from the lions' perspective.
"What you see  is virtually written and  in a sense directed by  the  lions," continued Swan. 
"We allowed  the  lions  to perform naturally, with guidance by  the wranglers and although we had a script, scenes were not set in tablets of stone. Therefore some scenes had to be rewritten  to  accommodate  the  fantastic  performances  we  were  getting  from  the  lions.
Sometimes,"  he  jested.  "I  think  they  knew what  the  audiences would  respond  to  better than we did!"
WHITE LION is a family adventure story that follows the life of a white lion, Letsatsi, who is born into a tawny pride in the wilds of Africa. His color difference makes life very difficult for him, forcing him to find his own way in the world, amidst numerous obstacles. 
"It's a film for all age groups," said Richardson, "with every ingredient to be a runaway hit. 
And  the cubs will pull at  the heart strings of  the most seasoned moviegoer."   Added Line Producer Carine Stander; "Simple films, such as this, are rarely made anymore, yet these are  the  films we adored as children, and  the reason we  fell  in  love with  filmmaking.   And aside  from being a wonderful experience  that  the whole  family can enjoy, a  film such as WHITE LION affords an intimate view of these magnificent creatures, depicting them in a way that that has never before been captured on film."

CASTING THE LIONS…
"The casting process was a  tricky one,"  recalled Richardson.   "As  the original story was about a tawny lion, I had all my little tawnies, of all age-groups, lined-up, and then we got the  call  saying,  'Hang  on  a moment what would  you  say  if we  cast  the main  hero  as  a white lion!'  It made sense, but it also made my life a nightmare.  We only had a few white lions at  the Lion Park, and our main hero white  lion, an adult male,  is probably  the only completely workable one in the country. The two lions that we actually had to source, were the  lions needed  to portray  the  teenage period of Letsatsi's  life. The  lions we  finally used were 'Bruce' and 'Bravo' who were aged just fourteen-months at the time." 
Richardson continued.  "The difference between these lions and those in other movies or Hollywood  productions,  is  that  ours  are  not  'trained'  lions;  i.e.  lions  who  can  hit  their marks: stop there, sit down, lay, stay.   However, these lions will perform for two rewards; one  is  love and  the second  is meaty  treats.   Without  those  ingredients we wouldn't have had workable lions on the film.  So, amazingly, many of the complicated scenes - very big wide  shots  of  this  little  lion walking  a  huge  distance  toward  camera  -  are  accomplished mainly because  the  lion  loves and respects us, and not only because of  the  treat  that he gets at  the end.   Scenes  that were  less complicated, were achieved where  the  lion was aware that if he does what he's asked, he's going to get a little cube of meat, and if you're a lion," jested Richardson, "that's very exciting!"
"With many  other  animal  pictures  produced,"  explained  Director  and  Cinematographer, Michael  Swan,  "the  animals  aren't  that  tame  and  therefore  not  that  easy  to  control. However, with WHITE LION, all  the  lions we used were hand-reared and enjoyed a very good relationship with our three animal wranglers. They were very easy to work with, but it was not always easy to persuade them do precisely what we wanted them to, which is the nature of anything involving animals or children!"
Ninety-eight percent of  the  lions on  this production, except  for  'Bruce' and  'Bravo', were either hand-reared by Kevin Richardson, or his  two  trainers.   Richardson  received Bruce and Bravo at eight months; an age at which he would never usually start work with a lion. 
"But we had no choice," explained Richardson, "so the process involved intense discipline, interaction  combined with much  of  love  and  care. We  had  a  daily  regime  and  the  lions have subsequently performed beyond my wildest expectations." 
The filmmakers employed both tawny and white lions of all ages to depict the phases the film's four-legged characters go through, with the youngest aged from just a week to eight-weeks.  Up to sixty lions were used to depict the various age groups of the key lions and supporting  lions  that appear  in  the  film.   "The  lions' ages were very specific  to  the story," explained  Richardson,  as  we  needed  to  illustrate  the  various  phases  of  Letsatsi's  life. 
However,  lions  grow  so  quickly,  that  a  lion,  who  may  have  been  perfectly  sized  for shooting one day, no longer was by the following week." 

CAPTURING THE ADVENTURE ON FILM…
Filming took place over a substantial period of time, staggered in phases to accommodate the lions.  "I've shot a lot of action, visual effects, and have also worked quite extensively with  lions  previously,"  said  Swan,  "as  well  as  filming  two  feature  films  with  Kevin Richardson,  so have  come  to  know  the animal  side of movie making  fairly well  through those experiences. Therefore coming  to  this was easy  in  terms of understanding Kevin's requirements as to what the animals would need from the camera.  Kevin was always the intermediary between  the animals and me, so  their direction basically came  through him. 
From  that viewpoint,  it was a  fairly easy process, but wasn't entirely  trouble-free as  lions don't necessarily do exactly what you want  them  to, which was obviously  the challenge. 
But  I do  think  they had a sixth sense, because  they hit  their mark more accurately  than most actors I've worked with."  Line Producer, Carine Stander, concurred.  "They respond entirely  to  love and affection and possibly a  little piece of meat at  the end of a stick.   We just  showed  them  what  we  wanted  them  to  do  and  then  they  would  do  it.  They  were
fantastic and almost never let us down."
"We were  filming with  two,  sometimes  three  cameras,"  recalled Swan,  so were  able  to capture a  variety of angles  throughout  the  shoot.   We also  repeated  things until we got them right;  it was as simple as  that.   Animals won't do exactly  the same  thing more  than once, so we had to carefully plan our edit and ensure that way we covered the action with our cameras, enabled us to capture the material needed to sell the story.  To an extent it was  laborious,  but  also  very  rewarding.  This  movie  is  predominantly  about  lions,  not people, so it needed to be image dependant.  Therefore, from the word 'go' we knew that the imagery would be all-important."
Swan approached his dual roles on  the picture with aplomb.   "On most  films,  the director and  cinematographer  enjoy  a  close  collaboration,  so  doing  both  roles  on WHITE  LION was relatively painless.  Having also worked previously with Kevin Richardson, we tended to bounce ideas back and forth quite easily." 
The  filmmakers  shot  on  a  high  definition  digital  format.   "We  opted  for  that  instead  of 35mm," explained Swan, "because we were shooting an enormous amount of footage - up to  five  hours  of material  per  day.   Translating  that  to  film would  have  been  enormously expensive,  so  we  saved  money  there,  which  gave  us  the  freedom  to  concentrate  on capturing the material needed without worrying about the cost of stock."
Most wildlife movies are shot, day-in, day-out, with  the sun always  in  the sky, but going against  tradition, WHITE LION was  filmed  in summer,  rather  than  the  traditional exterior season of winter in the Highveld.  Explained Swan; "We went down this path because the gorgeous,  lush,  green  summer  environment  of  our  landscape  hadn't  previously  been captured on  film.   Also, white  lions  look exquisite when set against such a beautiful, rich, green backdrop.   This was a stylistic choice  that came  from Rodney Fuhr, our Executive Producer.  It wasn't without problems, as here in Johannesburg, over the past few years, we've experienced some of the wettest summers on record, which caused the production to  close  down  a  number  of  times,  but  it  has  ultimately  given  the  film  a unique  look."  Richardson  concurred; "It  was  incredibly  challenging,  particularly  as  we  were  only shooting exteriors.  The torrential rain we've recently had in Johannesburg impacted on us in many ways - from not being able to shoot, to having cranes and other equipment, such as tow vehicles, plus our crew, getting stuck in the mud. It was a logistical nightmare, but worth it!"
During  the  shoot,  the  filmmakers were  often  asked  if  they were  filming  a  ninety-minute documentary.    "The answer to that question is definitely NO," stated Kevin Richardson.
"Traditionally,  a  documentary  is  an  edit  of much  footage  that may  be  very  good,  and  a
story develops from there. Our film BEGINS with a specific story, which we made happen.
Audiences are also accustomed to the long lens look of a documentary, shot from a Land Rover but we set out to capture our lions on film in a very intimate way."
"This  is  the complete opposite of a documentary," added Michael Swan.  "Everything  that we  filmed was specifically set-up  for  the cameras and  the scenes we were shooting, so nothing was recorded by chance. The film was scripted, and we had a schedule of scenes that we needed to complete everyday, which followed the traditional discipline of a feature film where every shot is scripted and story-boarded, and the lions moved from left to right, or  as  we  needed  them  to  for  the  story,  whether  they  were  coming  down  a  mountain, looking  at  us  or  pausing.    In  a  documentary  you  could  never  capture  that  kind  of behaviour.   Everything was  designed  around  getting  the  story  told,  and  persuading  the animals to do what we wanted them to do and where we wanted them to do it. That's the difference between a dramatic fiction film and a documentary - the latter really being just a slice  of  life  captured  on  film.     Our  shooting was  quite  the  opposite  of  a  documentary, which  is executed  in any  light, as  long as  the animal  is  in  frame.   We set-up our shots  to have the best light for the cameras, and the sets  that we created were designed to make WHITE  LION  a  dramatic  fiction  feature  film  destined  to  be  screened  in  a  cinema,  as opposed to a documentary which you can catch on late-night television."
Working  on WHITE  LION  proved  an  amazing  experience  for  all  involved.    "Lions  are definitely  the king of  the beasts,"  remarked Carine Stander.  "It's basically acknowledged amongst every nationality on  this planet  that  lions are at  the  top of  the  food-chain, so we have great respect for them.  But at the same time, I think they are great teachers, and for me, and everyone else, working with  them has  just been  the most  incredible experience.  Watching  a  movie  such  as  this  is  truly  phenomenal  in  terms  of  getting  so  close  and personal with these majestic creatures."
Filmed on  location at  the Kingdom of  the White Lion, SA Lion Park, Nash's Farm, Glen Afric and Entabeni Game Reserve, photography on WHITE LION was completed in June 2008 with  final post-production  in December 2008 and  is  the  first  feature  film  from South African-based company Peru Productions Pty. Ltd.

KEVIN RICHARDSON (Producer, Presenter and Animal Wrangler). 
After graduating with a BSc  in Anatomy and Physiology, Kevin began his career  in post-operative rehabilitation. He made a dramatic career switch when he met Rodney Fuhr and started working at the Lion Park, ten years ago. Kevin spent two years filming for the Lion Park  and  since  then  has  made  numerous  commercials,  'wrangling'  animals  seen  in international  commercials  for  Jeep  Cherokee,  Holston  Pils,  Landrover  and  many  more large corporations.
His  feature  film  credits as an animal wrangler  include  Le Lion  starring Alain Delon, and Prey directed by Academy Award® nominee, Darrell Roodt  (Yesterday). Kevin has also executive  produced  and  presented  a  number  of  documentaries  distributed  by  National Geographic; the two most recent being Dangerous Companions and Black Leopard - In  Search  of  a  Legend.    He  has  appeared  on many  news  networks  including  CNN,  SKY

MICHAEL SWAN (Director and Cinematographer)   
Michael's career as a filmmaker spans more than twenty years. Today he is recognized as one of South Africa's most acclaimed cinematographers and 2nd Unit Directors. Among his notable  motion  picture  credits  are,  Cry,  The  Beloved  Country  distributed  by  Miramax, Dangerous Ground for New Line Cinema, Tarzan and Jane for Village Roadshow, Second  Skin for Alliance Atlantis, The Groomsmen for Sony Pictures, Pavement and Borderline for  MPCA/Apollo Media, and Prey for Videovision Entertainment/Distant Horizon.

PHILLIP MILLER (Composer)
Phillip Miller is a South African composer who works, in film, video and live performance.
He has worked with some of the most innovative film makers to emerge from South Africa  in recent years, composing music for the soundtracks of many local and international films and  television productions,  including  the acclaimed and award -winning drama TV series Yizo Yizo, directed by Oscar nominee Angus Gibson and Teboho Mahlatsi.
In 2004 and 2005, Miller  completed  the  soundtracks  to  three new South African  feature films  including  Ian Gabriel's  Forgiveness,  Teddy Mattera's Max  and Mona  and  Revel's Fox's  the Flyer, which has been  shown at many  international  film  festivals. For  the  film, Forgiveness, he was awarded  the Golden Horn  for best soundtrack at  the South African Film and Television Awards.
In 2006, Miller completed the soundtrack to the film Catch a Fire directed by the acclaimed  film director, Phillip Noyce released by Working Title Films.

RODNEY FUHR (Executive Producer)
Rodney  Fuhr  is  a  wildlife  fanatic  in  his  mid  60's  who  has  been  deeply  involved  in sponsoring lion research since the late 70's.
People have always seen adult male lions as the 'king of the beasts' with a pretty good life in the pride, with a harem of females and plenty of food for him to eat, but very few have actually seen what  it  takes  for a young male  lion  to become a success and  take over a pride of his own.
It's a difficult journey and mortality of lion cubs can be as high as 80%. The ratio of males to females born is 50:50.  However, as one can see, the number of females in the bush far outnumbers  the males, which  further  illustrates  just how  treacherous  the  journey  is  for a young male lion to become an adult.  Add a further disadvantage like being white in color and the odds of failure are compounded.
Rodney wanted  this  story  told, and being a  successful businessman, had  the money  to finance the making of this film entirely by himself.  It's been a movie almost thirty years in the making, which has finally has come to the big screen in all its splendor and glory.

PROUDLY SOUTH AFRICAN FILMMAKING

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