Namibia's Wild Horses Feature in Movie by Jean-Jacques Annaud
October 19, 1998 - 0:0
JOHANNESBURG The free spirits of the harsh Namibian desert, Africa's only herd of wild horses, are the subject of a new feature film currently being shot by acclaimed French movie-maker Jean-Jacques Annaud. Like his other classic The Bear, Annaud's new project, entitled Hoofbeats, is told through the eyes of an animal this time a young horse which learns to survive alone in the desert.
The genuine wild horses of the desert, however, will not feature few people have seen them as they roam in some of the remotest parts of Namibia's vast Namib Desert, the oldest in the world, which mainly comprises wind-swept sand dunes and rock fields. The film is being shot in the dunes surrounding Walvis Bay, Namibia's Atlantic Ocean port, and uses a cast of 60 horses imported from South Africa and Zimbabwe, according to Annaud's publicists.
A 10-strong team of animal trainers, headed by Sled Reynolds of Dances With Wolves fame, is tasked with ensuring the success of what one trainer labeled the most difficult horse movie mounted in the history of filmmaking. With one sequence that will run for 40 minutes without dialog, the horses have to deliver powerful performances. They are helped by a cast of a few humans, including an 11-year-old san (bushman) girl, and animals such as Oryx antelopes, cheetah, lions and baboons.
Known as the wild horses of Aus, Nambia's equines there are around 137 of them have adapted to some of the most arduous conditions in the world and can go almost a week without water. No one knows exactly where the mysterious horses came from. The likeliest of several theories is that they are descendants of horses abandoned by German troops based in Namibia when it was known as German South West Africa. When the Germans pulled out and left the vast, arid and diamond-rich land to South African rule in 1915, the horses were abandoned in the desert to die instead, they adapted and survived.
Another theory is that they are descendants of workhorses brought from Germany at the turn of the century. This version is favored by Annaud and he explores it in Hoofbeats. The star of the movie is a horse named Lucky, born aboard a German supply steamer during a treacherous sea voyage transporting its mother and other workhorses to Africa. Lucky is parted from its mother and ends up at a mining town in then South West Africa. With the encroaching World War I, the town is hastily evacuated and lucky, abandoned and in need of water, ventures into the surrounding desert where it learns to survive with the help of the san girl and an Oryx antelope.
It eventually becomes leader of a herd of other abandoned horses and teaches them how to survive in the desert. Hoofbeats is directed by Russian-born Segei Bodrov (prisoner of the mountain) and produced by Annaud for Columbia Tristar Pictures. Annaud won Cesar Awards for The Bear and <169>The Name of the Rose. His feature debut Black and White in Color won him an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His most recent movie was Seven Years in Tibet which starred Brad Pitt. Shooting of Hoofbeats is expected to wrap up by the end of November. (AFP)
The genuine wild horses of the desert, however, will not feature few people have seen them as they roam in some of the remotest parts of Namibia's vast Namib Desert, the oldest in the world, which mainly comprises wind-swept sand dunes and rock fields. The film is being shot in the dunes surrounding Walvis Bay, Namibia's Atlantic Ocean port, and uses a cast of 60 horses imported from South Africa and Zimbabwe, according to Annaud's publicists.
A 10-strong team of animal trainers, headed by Sled Reynolds of Dances With Wolves fame, is tasked with ensuring the success of what one trainer labeled the most difficult horse movie mounted in the history of filmmaking. With one sequence that will run for 40 minutes without dialog, the horses have to deliver powerful performances. They are helped by a cast of a few humans, including an 11-year-old san (bushman) girl, and animals such as Oryx antelopes, cheetah, lions and baboons.
Known as the wild horses of Aus, Nambia's equines there are around 137 of them have adapted to some of the most arduous conditions in the world and can go almost a week without water. No one knows exactly where the mysterious horses came from. The likeliest of several theories is that they are descendants of horses abandoned by German troops based in Namibia when it was known as German South West Africa. When the Germans pulled out and left the vast, arid and diamond-rich land to South African rule in 1915, the horses were abandoned in the desert to die instead, they adapted and survived.
Another theory is that they are descendants of workhorses brought from Germany at the turn of the century. This version is favored by Annaud and he explores it in Hoofbeats. The star of the movie is a horse named Lucky, born aboard a German supply steamer during a treacherous sea voyage transporting its mother and other workhorses to Africa. Lucky is parted from its mother and ends up at a mining town in then South West Africa. With the encroaching World War I, the town is hastily evacuated and lucky, abandoned and in need of water, ventures into the surrounding desert where it learns to survive with the help of the san girl and an Oryx antelope.
It eventually becomes leader of a herd of other abandoned horses and teaches them how to survive in the desert. Hoofbeats is directed by Russian-born Segei Bodrov (prisoner of the mountain) and produced by Annaud for Columbia Tristar Pictures. Annaud won Cesar Awards for The Bear and <169>The Name of the Rose. His feature debut Black and White in Color won him an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His most recent movie was Seven Years in Tibet which starred Brad Pitt. Shooting of Hoofbeats is expected to wrap up by the end of November. (AFP)