For the similar named song, see Guerillas in tha Mist.

Gorillas in the Mist is a 1988 film which tells the true-life story of naturalist Dian Fossey and her work in Rwanda with Mountain Gorillas. The screenplay was adapted by Anna Hamilton Phelan from articles by Alex Shoumatoff and Harold T. P. Hayes and a story by Phelan and Tab Murphy. The original music score was composed by Maurice Jarre. The movie was directed by Michael Apted and the cinematography was by John Seale.

The movie stars Sigourney Weaver, Bryan Brown, Julie Harris and John Omirah Miluwi. It was nominated for several Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Sigourney Weaver), Best Film Editing, Best Music, Original Score and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

Plot summary

A Kentucky woman, Dian Fossey is inspired by 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 the 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.

Main cast

Actor	Role
Sigourney Weaver	Dian Fossey
Bryan Brown	Bob Campbell
Julie Harris	Roz Carr
John Omirah Miluwi	Sembagare
Iain Cuthbertson	Dr. Louis Leakey
Constantin Alexandrov	Van Vecten
Waigwa Wachira	Mukara
Iain Glen	Brendan Hello
David Lansbury	Larry
Maggie O'Neill	Kim

Box office

US Gross Domestic Takings: US$ 24,720,479

+ Other International Takings: $36,429,000

= Gross Worldwide Takings: $61,149,479

External links

• Boxoffice information