Prince Ruspoli's Turaco (in progress)
[still]
2024
In collaboration with Yale Peabody Museum and Wesley Larios

This film is set in 1893 three years prior to the first Italo-Ethiopian war. Within the sub-tropics of south-eastern Ethiopia, an endemic bird awaits its impending extinction. It tells the tale of an encounter with its discoverer and namesake, Prince Ruspoli, a 19th century Italian aristocrate, naturalist, and stipulator of the Italian Empire's protectorate over the region. The prince traverses rivers and forests in a violent campaign collecting native species. Along with other endangered species, the Turaco bird witnesses and narrates this expedition, while contemplating on the relationship between colonialism, habitat loss and diversity.