Ivory. A Crime Story

Ivory. A crime story is arguably one of the most condemning film ever made about the massacre of elephants in Africa. It fires arrows at a complex web of culprits, from China and Buddhist monks, to corrupt African high-officials, toothless NGOs and secretive Chinese businessmen, building fortunes on an never-increasing demand for ivory which has brought one of the world’s most intelligent animals to near the brink of extinction. This investigative film is produced and written by Sergey Yastrzhembsky, a career diplomat, who was the voice of the Kremlin under President Boris Yeltsin and served current president Vladimir Putin as special envoy to Brussels and spokesman on Chechnya. Since leaving politics in 2008 and distancing himself from the Kremlin, Sergey Yastrzhembsky has dedicated his life to photography and filmmaking, focusing mainly on Africa. He produced a series of more than 60 documentary films on endangered nations, broadcast on several Russian television channels from 2009 to 2015. His full-length film “Africa. Blood and Beauty” awards the “Golden Eagle Prize” by the National Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Russia in nomination “The Best documentary film of 2013”. Ivory. A crime story, which took three years to shoot in more than 30 countries, seeks to challenge governments and organizations who are proving incapable of stopping the bloody business of ivory.