Leo80. The Story of His Life / Лео80. История одного леопарда

Credits

Guram Gabunia

Director
10/24/1985

Biography

Guram Gabuniya started working on TV as a host on music TV channel in early university times. Further on worked as a reporter on football channel, then as an editor, CG designer, scriptwriter, director and producer. While working in different directions, studied different subjects in Gnomon Hollywood CG school, New York Film School as a producer for film and TV. In different years was a general producer of different channels, each one was awarded also as best entertainment channel. Also was nominated as a scriptwriter on TEFY awards.

Directors Statement

The idea behind the movie is to tell the story of the main character, a wild beast, and present it as a humane animal with its own thoughts and feelings. This was a difficult task because no one knows its personality or its relation to gamekeepers and caretakers. The character had to be made up from scratch; I came up with a new and original form to make the story clear to viewers of all ages. The encounter of the main character with other characters in the movie takes the film to another level, and the dialog becomes more meaningful. What we ended up with is a fairy-tale with a dramatic plot based on real events. We had to "learn" to climb trees, walk along logs and jump over streams. And we couldn’t have done it without some additional tools, like leopard-paw gloves, which we had to put under the camera. The weather plays an important role in transmitting drama in the movie. When the character’s upset, it is raining, for instance. The weather supports and empathizes with the dying leopard. For me, it was important to make people feel a certain emotion and bring it over into their own lives. For me, this is an emotion tied to paying attention to the world around us and being kind.