Kim Frank

Kim Frank is an award-winning writer and multi-media storyteller whose work has been published in The
Explorers Journal, Sidetracked, Oceanographic, Earth Island Journal, American Literary Review, SVPN Magazine, where she served as editor, and more. Projects include the books Elephants in the Hourglass: A Journey of Reckoning and Hope Along the Himalaya (Pegasus NY, 2025) Born to Ice with National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen and Amaze with SeaLegacy founder, Cristina Mittermeier (TeNeues 2018) Kim is the Writer, Director and Producer of the forthcoming documentary Where the Forest Roars. A Fellow of The Explorers Club and the Royal Geographical Society, Kim has a Master of Fine Arts from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and a Master of SocialWork from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice. Kim has given multiple talks, podcasts, and featured radio shows about her multi-year project From Conflict to Coexistence: Asian Elephants in Crisis Along the Himalaya in Northeast India. She has led two Explorer Club Flag Expeditions and was awarded The Rolex Explorer to take into the field as part of the Rolex Expedition Watch Program.

The inspiration for Where the Forest Roars began in 2018, when I first traveled to North Bengal and witnessed the deep entanglement of people and elephants along the foothills of the eastern Himalaya. I was struck by how little of this story had reached the outside world — not just the tragedy of human–elephant conflict, but also the extraordinary resilience, empathy, and coexistence I found in the communities living with wild elephants for generations.

As a writer, I had spent years exploring our relationship with the natural world — but standing in the tea gardens and forest fringes of North Bengal, hearing people describe nights spent listening for elephants moving in the dark, I realized the story needed to be seen and heard, not only read. That’s when the idea for the film took root.

Where the Forest Roars grew out of my desire to bridge worlds — to connect the scientific, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of coexistence, and to give voice to those who live daily with this tension between beauty and danger. The film is part of my larger project, Asian Elephants: From Conflict to Coexistence, which includes my book Elephants in the Hourglass, articles, interviews and over $100,000 raised to help this issue throughout local communities reflected in this documentary. Together, they reflect years of fieldwork, collaboration, and a hope that sharing these stories might foster empathy, awareness, and real support for the people and elephants of this region.

Ultimately, I was inspired by the forests themselves — their sounds, silences, and the unseen intelligence moving within them. The roar of the forest is both a warning and a call to listen.