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The Last Ranger tells the true story of Thandi, a rhino that survived a brutal attack, and the people who fought to save her life.
Set against the stunning backdrop of the Amakhala Game Reserve in South Africa, Kushelwa (Avumile Qongqo) is the last remaining ranger, and the Cindy Lee-directed movie nominated for an Oscar in the Live Action Short Film category follows her and her young, would-be protégé Litha (Liyabona Mroqoza) as they are caught up in the rhino-poaching crisis.
During a panel discussion at Deadline’s Contenders: The Nominees event, Lee said this story felt incredibly important to show the world. “The whole thing with the rhino poaching is really, really devastating,” she said. “And it’s quite surprising to know outside of South Africa, how few people are really aware of what’s going on in South Africa. That one rhino is poached every 15 hours and that the rangers are losing their lives. Nothing is really being done to curb that.”
Lee also noted that the film is “uniquely South African” and that “it’s told in one of the 11 official languages [Xhosa]. It shows the beautiful landscape. It tells a uniquely South African story because of what happens when the little girls are left without their mothers at home to be looked after by the grandmother. Then the father has to go and shoot the rhino — he has no other source of income. So there’s so many little points that it touches to.”
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The film has deeply resonated with the people most closely associated with the region, Lee said. “South Africa has reacted to this story way beyond what we could have expected, not just because of the rhino poaching, but because South Africans are seeing themselves on the screen in their own language without the influence of some a foreigner coming in. And it’s really it’s been overwhelming. The response has been absolutely incredible.”
Six Feet Films producer and co-writer Darwin Shaw explained that the idea of telling this story first came from a meeting with Lee’s brother David, who had gone to school with the veterinarian who saved Thandi’s life after she was left for dead by poachers.
“Will [Hawkes, producer] and I were collecting stories from around the world about how people were affected by the pandemic,” Shaw said. When they met David Lee, they discussed how it’s not just humans who are affected by the pandemic, but also animals. “That was the seed of the idea because [Lee] told us that because there were no tourists coming to South Africa because of the pandemic, there was no money coming into the game reserves. So, they couldn’t afford to pay for the medical treatments or for the rangers to protect the animals. We thought, well, that’s the story. And then we developed that story. The Last Ranger is based around a ranger who’s the last one left to protect the animals.”
Casting was another challenge for the filmmakers. “South Africa doesn’t have the largest pool of actors to begin with,” Lee said of their search for a young girl to play Litha. “We were quite worried because this little girl, we weren’t finding her, and we realized the entire film rested on those tiny, tiny little shoulders.”
But when Mroqoza’s audition tape landed, Lee said, “We all just started crying from relief from how powerful her performance was. She understood this character. She has this intelligence way beyond her years to understand and the words that she was saying. And we were like, ‘How does she do that?’“
With regard to casting Qongqo as Khuselwa the ranger, Lee said, “She’s just so beautiful and grand and gorgeous… And then when we put the two of them together, we knew we had a film. It was extraordinary when we did.”
“We knew that because of this performance by these two women, that we had something special,” Shaw added. “We just had to try and find a way to bring it to the front.”
Of working with the animals seen in the film, Shaw said, “There were wild lions coming around. It was it was very, very raw.”
Lee added, “What’s so powerful about this film is that because you connect to these characters, all three of them, the leads and the rhino, you have such an incredible bond with them. Your heart is so wide open that at the end of the film, when those numbers come up, you just absorb them and you hang on to them and they really stay with people.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
