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INKOSI

KING

Action/Adventure - Development 2016

A boy helps nurse an injured lion back to health, developing an unusual and inspirational friendship that dramatically culminates with the lion saving the boy’s life. In so doing, the animal is mortally wounded and the boy takes a big leap towards manhood by compassionately ending his friend’s life.

- Year of production
- 2016
- Genres
- Action/Adventure, Environmental, Family
- Countries
- SOUTH AFRICA
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Budget
- 1 - 3 M$
- Duration
- 90 mn
- Writer(s)
- Craig GARDNER
- Synopsis
- A boy’s courage to make a man’s decision
  
  “Inkosi” is a coming of age film with an ending that will bring tears to the hardest of hearts.
  Set on a big game farm in the bush of South Africa, 10 year-old Brett Bonham lives in the shadow of his larger-than-life father, Ian, who has risked everything by turning his cattle farm into a safari camp – stocked with lions, giraffe and other wild animals. But a severe, ongoing drought threatens to destroy it all. Without water, Ian’s animals will die. He’s desperate to build a pipeline but has run out of money and can’t convince anyone else to help fund it. Ian’s only hope is rain – lots of it… and soon.
  
  But then disaster strikes.
  
  Brett inadvertently leaves a gate open into the farm next door. Several of Ian’s lions make their way onto the property and kill some of the neighbour’s cattle. The man – Glenn Keating – shoots two of the predators dead. The third is wounded. Brett’s carelessness causes a major rift between the men – not to mention sending Ian into an accelerated financial tailspin.
  
  The net result is Brett losing his father’s trust and respect.
  
  While the lion – a male – is recuperating from its injury, young Brett (against all odds and the express orders of his father) spends time with the animal, developing a bond that evolves into a most unusual and inspirational friendship. Brett even names the wild animal Inkosi, which in the Zulu language means King.
  
  The arrival of poachers on Glenn’s farm triggers a gripping and frightening sequence in which Inkosi saves Brett’s life but, in so doing, is once again shot. This time, however, there’s little hope. The wound is far too severe.
  With an exciting and welcoming deluge, the drought is broken, but there is little joy in the household. Inkosi’s death is imminent. Ian wants to shoot the animal but Brett stands up to his father, insisting that the lion be humanely euthanized by injection.
  
  It’s a battle of wills that shows the elder Bonham what his son is made of. But the true passing out of childhood comes when Brett finally has to accept that his friend is in horrible pain and urgently needs to be put out of his misery. In a heart-wrenching climax, while his father is out fetching a veterinarian to put down the animal, the boy can no longer endure Inkosi’s suffering and, after a tearful good-bye, he ends the lion’s life.
  
  Brett has taken a large step towards manhood. And Ian looks at his son through different eyes. A lion has brought father and son together, and neither of them will ever be the same.
- Partners & financing
- Euramco Pictures
- Beginning of shooting
- Mar 07, 2016
- End of shooting
- Apr 04, 2016