"She's playing the young quite well! And the peacock, too..." producer Honza Jiran noted when choosing an actor for the French rendition of the gorilla fairy tales among 10 short-listed native speakers with more or less extensive acting experience. He eventually selected the one who interpreted the young and the peacock so nicely - Mélanie Ruppe.
After the success of the gorilla story book among schoolchildren in Cameroon (see Related Links) we decided to record a French rendition of the same as another way of helping children in Africa realise that gorillas deserve protection and that they, too, can help. (We should note that many people in Central Africa continue to perceive wild animals, including gorillas, as nothing more but a source of meat... I remember how surprise children in a forest village were to find out when browsing our book that a gorilla can have a name just like a human.)
In January this year, Czech Radio Leonardo's studio was busy for several evenings with the production of the fairy tales in French. Mélanie twittered like baby gorillas, rumbled in the role of Shina, swaggered like the peacock, and was getting desperate when Jan kept asking her to repeat certain parts over and over again. For instance, he was never satisfied with her rendition of ducks. I dare say both Mélanie and Honza sometimes regretted getting involved... It took another three weeks to edit the spoken word, an mix it with music and sound effects. At the end of March, we were leaving for Central Africa with CDs containing nine gorilla fairy tales.
We provided the CDs to schools and wildlife protection organisations in Cameroon and the Central African Republic we work with. Most importantly, Petra Hanzelkova was to hold negotiations with CRTV, the Cameroon national radio and TV broadcasting company in the country's capital Yaoundé. If a nationwide radio network aired our fairy tales, it would mean our effort was really fruitful and money from the Revealed account was spent meaningfully.
"I spoke to the programme director, Mr. Francois Bingono Bingono," once said after returning from negotiations. "They are happy to air our fairy tales!" . Bingono Bingono played the CD an found it so captivating that he turned away all visitors: "Not now! I want to hear how this is going to end!"
Besides the Cameroonian national radio, several regional stations in the country as well as at least one radio station in Congo have expressed their interest. Our aim is to provide the recording royalty-free to any station that meets our special criteria: they must operate in a country where gorillas live in the wild. We hope listeners would be enchanted by Mélanie's voice as Mr. Bingono Bingono, who said at the end: "The girl is so good at acting!"
Browse the book of gorilla fairy tales:
French version
English version
28.12.2009 Moja has been helping rescue gorillas in Africa. An English version of the gorilla tales book is being published as part of the Year of the Gorilla (YOG), a UN initiative, to raise funds to finance distribution of the book in Congo-Brazzaville and to support a project aimed at the rescue of the critically...
10.04.2009 Dorothy Matute, the headmistress of the Bonadikombo school, visited us in our hotel in Limbe, Cameroon. She was the first to obtain a CD with an audio rendition of gorilla fairy- tales from our book 'L´histoire des Gorilles' in French recorded by Jan Jiran. The idea behind the CD is similar to that...
09.04.2009 The Revealed has been aiming several years to support protection of Western Lowland Gorillas in Central Africa. First we financially supported a primate rescue centre in Limbe but then decided to carry out a project of our own. We published a book of fairy-tales about gorillas in English and French and distributed it to schoolchildren in Cameroon. Having been eagerly awaiting responses from...
08.04.2009 A few days ago, just after our arrival to the Limbe Wildlife Centre, Simone de Vries gave us two folders: the thinner one contained completed questionnaires, while the thicker one contained letters from children to Czech Radio, The Revealed, a mysterious person name Miralan Bobe, or all three of them...
27.03.2009 When visiting Cameroon in the spring of 2006 we realised that the best way to protect gorillas is to show the locals their beauty and intelligence. And when we published the first book of "gorilla" fairy tales, a little later in the Czech Republic, in which Moja naturally is the heroine, we weren't...
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