In February 1975, in the Shambe game reserve, South Sudan a young Northern White Rhino was captured by a team working to supply the rapidly-expanding European zoo and safari trade. They called him Sudan, after his homeland, and he was shipped 7,000 miles to a remote zoo in the north of former Czechoslovakia.
Over the next four decades of Sudan’s life, the Northern White Rhinos were annihilated by aggressive poaching in the wild and a failure to breed in captivity. Today, 43 year-old Sudan is the only male of his kind left on earth. He’s kept under 24-hour armed guard in Ol Pejeta conservancy in Kenya alongside the two remaining females. Sudan’s lonely status has earned him a bizarre infamy; he’s regularly photographed with concerned celebrities from around the globe and even has his own Twitter handle.
When Sudan dies, a subspecies that has walked the earth for five million years will die with him. Faced with this impending tragedy, a team of scientists have hatched a rescue plan for Sudan. Using cutting-edge animal assisted reproduction techniques, they’re hoping to use egg and sperm cells from the last living creatures and breed a new generation of Northern Whites Rhinos.
Following the scientists’ audacious battle to save a species, the film will be a timely exploration of whether humans have the power to bring back to life that which we have unwittingly destroyed.
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