Soraida Salwala opened the World’s First Asian Elephant Hospital in Lampang, Thailand in 1993 to treat elephants that are ill or injured as a result of work, abuse or neglect. To date, she and her staff have treated over 3,000 elephants for everything from eye infections to knife wounds, gunshot wounds, broken bones, drug addictions and building prosthetic limbs for the survivors of landmine accidents. Since then, the Asian Elephant population in Thailand declined from 40,000 to less than 2,600 left in captivity. Not only are Asian Elephants endangered, the remaining elephants are overworked, abused, exported to zoos around the world, or disfigured by stepping on forgotten landmines along the Thai borders.

The Eyes of Thailand is a color, feature-length, HD documentary film that exposes the problems facing the Thai Asian Elephants at the Friends of the Asian Elephant (FAE) Elephant Hospital through Soraida’s quest to save them.

The goal of The Eyes of Thailand is to educate and inspire viewers to protect the Asian Elephants through their actions both in the U.S. and in Thailand. Avoiding zoos with elephants, circuses and elephant attractions is the first step in ending the abuse. While other documentaries and television spots have addressed the plight of elephants worldwide, The Eyes of Thailand goes behind the walls of the Friends of the Asian Elephant and allows the audience to look two elephant landmine survivors, Motala and Mosha, in the eye and witness their first steps walking on prosthetic limbs built by the Prostheses Foundation. Ultimately, the film hopes to convey the added sense of urgency for people and organizations worldwide to pressure Thailand to change the laws in order to protect the dwindling number of Asian Elephants. If nothing is done, the species will become extinct within the next 50 years. Your tax-deductible donations through the film’s fiscal sponsor, the San Francisco Film Society, will enable D.V.A. Productions to complete Post-Production on The Eyes of Thailand and distribute it to film festivals, television, the Web and educational markets. Together we can spread the word about the plight of the Asian Elephant.