Richard Ladkani
Richard Ladkani is a director and cinematographer who has gained international recognition for numerous award-winning films.
Sea of Shadows, a National Geographic documentary executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, won the Audience Award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. The film reveals how Mexican drug cartels and the Chinese mafia have declared war on one of the world’s most beautiful ecosystems — an area Jacques Cousteau once called “The Aquarium of the World” — leading to the near extinction of the vaquita, the smallest whale on Earth.
The Netflix Original The Ivory Game, also executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, was shortlisted for an Academy Award in 2017 and won numerous prizes, including the Genesis Award, the Cinema for Peace Award, and the Golden Panda. This investigative thriller-documentary about the illegal ivory trade and the looming extinction of elephants premiered at the prestigious Telluride and Toronto International Film Festivals and helped bring an end to the legal ivory trade in China.
In early 2015, Richard and his wife, Anita Ladkani, founded Malaika Pictures. The name — Swahili for “angel” — is also the middle name of their first-born daughter. Malaika Pictures produces films that shine a bright light on some of the most pressing environmental and political issues of our time.
