Directed by Andras Csapo, Andras Matai
Country of Origin Hungary
Runtime- 46:20
In Southeast Asia the elephant tourism is booming. Elephant shows, elephant ridings, ethical elephant parks… everyone has their choice. But do we choose the right thing?
The topic is very fastidious, and the million dollar business owners would do anything, in order to keep their secret.
But what is this dark secret? What is behind the latest trend “no riding”? What are the ethical elephant parks, and are they really in favor with their beloved animals? How could the travelers pick their elephant activities, that is beneficial for both parties?
We wanted to discover everything first hand. So we traveled to Chiang Mai, Thailand to visit different elephant activities to find the answers.
This expository documentary is shedding some light on the southeast asian elephant industry. As the say, the problem, nor the solution is black or white.
Director Biography – Andras Csapo, Andras Matai
Csapó András is a young director and cameraman from Budapest, Hungary. Since he was a child, he has mostly been interested in two main things: travel and nature. He graduated from SZTE University in Environmental studies BSc in 2014 and from ELTE University in Science Communication MSc in 2017.
A few months later he decided to explore South-East Asia and make documentary movies. He moved to Indonesia for one year and took part of a scholarship, called Darmasiswa at Udayana University.
In Bali he began to work with Harmincz Rita and Mátai András, who are well known travel bloggers in Hungary. In June 2018 they made four part documentary series about Indonesian ethnic groups. The title of the series is “Four faces of Indonesia”. These movies debuted on television in 2019 January. One episode of the movie series was shown in Bali at The World Conference on Creative Economy.