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9/12/99

Last autumn, without notice, Hollywood movie star Leonardo DiCaprio answered DFGF's appeal for the Congolese Parks Authority and donated the full target of the emergency appeal.

"The environment, and environmental issues, are the first and foremost charitable concerns I have focused on," Leonardo said recently, "and I consider myself an environmentalist." Such instinctive support makes powerful comment on the importance of mountain gorilla conservation.

Dian Fossey said, "Human beings must decide now whether or not the mountain gorilla will become a species discovered and extinct within the same century." In the final months of the 20th century, when the threats to their survival are manifold, her words are more compelling than ever. It is a decisive moment for mountain gorillas.

Leonardo DiCaprio is just one of a growing number of famous, wealthy and powerful individuals who have responded to the cause. In the past 6 months the Fund has raised 175,000 pounds from just 25 individual donors. Invariably, their increasing support has been matched by the growing success of community-based conservation in central Africa.

Dian Fossey maintained, "The gorillas' destiny lies in the hands of those who share their communal inheritance." Now, with a major commitment to long-term finance near at hand, finally, after 30 years of conservation in the Virungas, genuine African ownership of the issues has begun to emerge. A growing force of Congolese, Rwandese and Ugandan conservationists - skilled, committed and funded - have begun to take control of gorilla conservation.

9/12/99

Award-winning director Philip Kaufman has begun principal photography in London on "Quills," which stars Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet, Joaquin Phoenix and Michael Caine, it was announced today by Fox Searchlight President Lindsay Law. Witty, seductive and deliciously sinister, "Quills" is a compelling portrait of the passionately obsessed and the dynamics of morality, consequence and freedom of expression. Kaufman directs from a script by Doug Wright.

Kaufman, whose diverse films include "The Right Stuff," "Rising Sun," "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," for which his screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award®, and "Henry and June," has enjoyed a considerable reputation as both writer and director of style and imagination having written "The Outlaw Josey Wales."

Oscar®-winner Geoffrey Rush ("Shine," "Elizabeth," "Shakespeare in Love") is cast as the Marquis de Sade, whose literature changed forever the language of sexuality and attracted controversy and admiration in equal measure. In the years after the French Revolution, de Sade's literature continued to threaten the moral conservatism of Napoleon's France.

Oscar®-nominee Kate Winslet ("Titanic," "Sense and Sensibility," "Hideous Kinky") plays Madeleine, the innocent and feisty young laundress who unwittingly temps Charenton asylum's most famous resident and the priest who runs it.

Joaquin Phoenix ("Gladiator," "Inventing the Abbotts," "To Die For") plays the Abbe Coulmier who believes toleration and a love of God can cure any man. But, he reckons without the depths of depravity he encounters, with tragic and terrifying consequences for all concerned.

Oscar®-winner Michael Caine ("Hannah and Her Sisters," "Little Voice") plays the ambitious doctor Royer-Collard, determined to use his new appointment at the asylum as a political stepping stone.

Behind-the-scenes, director Kaufman and his producing partners Peter Kaufman, Julia Chasman, Nick Wechsler and co-producer Mark Huffam, have assembled a kaleidoscope of technical talent which includes Oscar®-winning production designer Martin Childs ("Shakespeare in Love"), director of photography Rogier Stoffers, costume designer Jacqueline West ("Rising Sun") and editor Peter Boyle ("Robin Hood Prince of Thieves").

"Quills" will be released next year.

Cool Note: Overall worldwide sales of the Titanic video have reached 57 million (!!!) copies. A new world record (as expected).