• A new doc follows a 14-year-old girl who leaves L.A. and treks to Thailand on a mission to rescue a female elephant who has suffered 30 years of abuse.
• The filmmakers claim just 50,000 elephants remain in the world today.
• The film, “How I Became an Elephant,” debuted in Hollywood Dec. 2 as part of the 7^th Annual International Artivist Film Festival & Awards.

They represent the largest land animal living on Earth today. Their ancestry dates back to nearly 40 million years. Yet, in the modern world, elephants are often confined as beasts of slavery. One young 14-year-old girl wants to stop the injustice. Juliette West is sharing her story of “How I Became an Elephant,” a heartwarming account of how she leaves L.A. and treks to Thailand on a mission to rescue a female elephant who has suffered 30 years of abuse.

West, labeled as a young artivist – an artist who is raising awareness for humanity, animals or the environment – wants her story to become the start of an international movement to save one of the world’s most prehistoric species alive today.

“We’re losing 38,000 elephants each year to illegal ivory trade,” West said in the trailer. “If this keeps going then African elephants will be wiped out in 15 years.”

The filmmakers claim just 50,000 elephants remain in the world today. Many, they say, are “broken” and abused for amusement at circuses or tamed through torture for use within the tourism industry.

“How I Became an Elephant” debuted in Hollywood Dec. 2 as part of the 7^th Annual International Artivist Film Festival & Awards. The festival will also bring screenings of the film to New York and Brazil.