Naked Savages

It was already called the cruelest place on earth before the Americans even showed up.In 1970 Tom Desmond was considered the greatest emerging filmmaker since Hitchcock. Then an on-set accident and substance abuse ended his career.On the eve of the horrific 1984 Ethiopian famine he was handed a chance to redeem himself by directing a documentary of a vanishing society of people living in that countrys Danakil Depression.The project is plagued by difficulties made worse by insufferable weather and the crews own cultural and geo-political ignorance.As the world eagerly anticipates the film chaos consumes it. Under almost unbearable pressure Desmond and his crew are forced to concoct more and more strategies each more outlandish than the last to not just finish the project but survive the experience.Eventually Desmond - tormented by his past and the project - realizes his real reason for being in that desert.And it isnt to make a movie.