The Embassy in Addis Ababa organized an African premiere of the documentary THE ARK OF LIGHTS AND SHADOWS by the Czech director and producer Jan Svatoš. The film is a fascinating portrait of American adventurers, Martin and Osa Johnson, who in the 1920s made a number of expeditions to today's northern Kenya to document animals in their natural habitats.

Both Martin and Osa already knew that they were documenting a world that was slowly disappearing, and that made their work even more valuable. Jan Svatoš managed to trace their footsteps and even use the photographs to find the original places where the Johnsons had lived for 4 years.

Long before Joy Adamson wrote a book about lioness Elsa, before Hanzelka and Zikmund embarked on a journey around the world, and before the first national park was established in Africa, the incredible story of "Rebels from Kansas" fascinated celebrities such as Charlie Chaplin, Jack London, or the British royal family. Not only they, but also audiences around the world, were captivated by the films and books by Martin and Johnson's who showed ththe world that Africa, Borneo, or Oceania are not a home to bloodthirsty monsters, or cannibals, but a rapidly vanishing world worth preserving.

The documentary film THE ARK OF LIGHTS AND SHADOWS wants to remind not only the remarkable life of this American couple, but also their modern ideas close to the contemporary ideas of humanism and environmental protection.

The African premiere took place at the annual European Film Festival and the movie was presented by the filmmakers themselves - Jan and Romi Svatoš.