Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey

The story of Dian Fossey, a scientist who came to Africa to study the vanishing mountain gorillas, and later fought to protect them.

• Director: Michael Apted
• Genre:Biography / Drama
• Runtime:124 minutes

Cast

Sigourney Weaver: Dian Fossey
Bryan Brown : Bob Campbell
Julie Harris : Roz Carr
John Omirah Miluwi : Sembagare
Iain Cuthbertson : Dr. Louis Leakey

A Kentucky woman, Dian Fossey, is inspired by an anthropologist Louis Leakey to devote her life to the study of primates. Travelling into deepest Africa, Fossey becomes fascinated with the lives and habits of the rare mountain gorillas of the Rwandan jungle. She becomes so preoccupied with her vocation that she loses the opportunity of a romance with National Geographic photographer Bob Campbell.

Appalled by the poaching of the gorillas for their skins, hands, and heads, Fossey complains to the Rwandan government, which dismisses her, claiming that poaching is the only means by which some of the Rwandan natives can themselves survive. She rejects this, and dedicates herself to saving the African Mountain gorilla from illegal poaching and likely extinction. To this end she forms and leads numerous anti-poaching patrols, and even burns down the poachers’ villages and stages a mock execution of one of the offenders. Fossey is mysteriously murdered on December 26, 1985, in the bedroom of her cabin. Read more

Watch full Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey online streaming for free