K.J. Yossman Director James Marsh is set to direct a new hybrid animated documentary feature for Submarine and Sandpaper Films.“Oasis, Saving the Baghdad Zoo” (working title), is a feature-length animated documentary partly based on “Babylon’s Ark,” the book about a year-long rescue mission of animals abandoned across Baghdad by Saddam Hussein and his son Uday.Billed as a 21st century Noah’s Ark, the film will show how a team of American soldiers, Iraqi zookeepers, and international volunteers tended to lions, camels, bears, exotic birds, monkeys, pigs and even an ocelot in the middle of a brutal war, risking their own lives in the process.
The zoo was first abandoned during 2003’s Battle of Baghdad, when Hussein’s troops battled the U.S. military. Amid the chaos and violence, a team of compassionate volunteers set out to find the zoo’s missing inhabitants, including a pride of lions tracked down to Uday Hussein’s palace and a pack of Arabian horses located in the heart of the war zone.
Thanks to the volunteers’ commitment, the zoo continues to survive to this day.The book was written by Graham Spence and conservationist Lawrence Anthony.Amsterdam and LA-based animation studio Submarine (“Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood”) are working with Sandpaper Films, who originated and developed the story, on the project.The feature will be a hybrid animation/documentary, including 2D, 3D and rotoscoped animation combined with interviews and archive footageOscar and Bafta-winner Marsh has previously worked across both documentary and scripted films and television, including his Oscar-winning doc “Man on the Wire” and Stephen Hawking biopic “The Theory of Everything.”Femke Wolting and Bruno Felix will executive produce the.
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