Africa’s Wild West – Stallions of the Namibian Desert

Director: Franz Leopold Schmelzer
Production Country: Germany
Production Year։ 2014
Duration։ 50 minutes
Produced by: PIK Films

SYNOPSIS

In 1918 German and South African war-horses, no longer needed, were released into the burning Namibian desert. How could they survive, in one of the world’s most beautiful, parched and rugged landscapes? Miraculously, they have held on to this day, constantly crossing the desert in search of sparse patches of grass, returning for water to the single well built in colonial days, sharing it with perfectly adapted oryxes – while marauding spotted hyenas patrol close by. Far inland, in ghost towns long since abandoned by the diamond industry, snakes, lizards, chameleons and dew-drinking beetles compete for food among the drifting sands. Along the coast from the abandoned factories hundreds of thousands of seals come ashore to breed, their babies mercilessly hunted by jackals and brown hyenas. Just 200 metres away on Halifax Island, a colony of black-footed penguins enjoy a carefree life, protected from every predator.