DID YOU KNOW?

                    

1. Already at the beginning of the production, which lasted over five years and began back in July 2017,Oren Peled, the director of the movie, has decided not to use digital animation at all, so in order to achieve as much authenticity as possible in regards to the main character of the cat Mango - everything on the screen will be a result of the live footage with the real flesh and blood cat. So almost the absolute majority of the effects in the film are an outcome of manipulations on the footage (such as green screen, rotoscope, etc.) and not animation.

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2. In order to obtain authentic reactions from his cat Simba throughout the filming, and to create a large variety of convincing facial expressions that would show fear, joy, concern and hope, Peled surrounded Simba with four cameras over approximately 118 non-consecutive days of filming. By that way he created a huge stock footages of raw materials from which he assembled the final film.

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3. In a questions and answers session with the audience at the "International Animal Future Film Festival", which took place in London on July 2023, Peled said that in many cases Simba himself "rewrote" the screenplay from time to time while filming, and that more than once his unexpected reactions to pre-scripted situations created moments that took the movie to better places than he planned.

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4. As soon as Peled saw that, the whole method of working on this production has changed, and he realized that in fact he didn't go out for shooting a film but for "fishing"... fishing for as many authentic moments as possible that will eventually combine with a lot of luck into a complete and coherent film, by the very fact that it's impossible to tame a cat, but only to manipulate him, and that the best way to get authentic and reliable expressions from him is simply by treating the production itself less as a narrative feature film and more as a documentary nature film.

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5. At the end of the production, almost 40 minutes from the 78 minutes length finished film, included special effects, (the vast majority of them were done by using "Mocha Pro" software.)

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6. On October 22, 2022, "Saving Mango – A Cat's Story" was released for a special and limited edition for sale on the direct viewing platform "Vimeo On Demand". The marketing was aimed specifically to the cat-loving audience and included materials about the production process and ancillary products from the film. The original distribution date was aimed for October 4, 2022 (World Animal Day) but Peled didn't manage to finish the mix sound and color grading for the film on time, and the work on it has ended two weeks later.

 

Five months later, with 4 additional new minutes that weren't included in the limited edition, the film, with it's 78 minutes final version, was screened for the first time in front of an audience at the Maryland International Film Festival in the USA on March 24, 2023.

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