[Bylot]

Dated to 1975, the footage depicts a tourist being attacked and eaten alive by a pack of lions while attempting to film them in an African Safari Park. His family watched from their car and recorded the incident, but the clip has no sound. The victim is commonly named as Pit Dernitz, although no authoritative record confirms this. Included in the 1975 mondo film Ultime grida dalla savana (Savage Man Savage Beast), the footage has long been disputed, and it was never established whether the death was real or staged.

[wildhazz]

Is this real?

[Duncloco]

Imagine all that violence just to steal his video camera to film one of their swinging parties!

[kellyhound]

Originally Posted by wildhazz ↗

Is this real?

Probably not.
This clip was used in traces of death and savage man savage beast original known as Ultime grida dalla savana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultime_grida_dalla_savana
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0155306/
Antonio Climati, cinematographer to Prosperi and Jacopetti in many Mondo films, teamed up with Mario Morra in 1974 to produce their own string of Mondo films, aptly named the "Savage Trilogy". Franco Prosperi also went on to produce these films. Climati and Morra were notorious for staging several scenes of their documentaries.

Some longer clip of that with narrator speaking

Scene description: Lion attack sequence from the 1975 Mondo film Savage Man Savage Beast (original title: Ultime Grida dalla Savana). It was later incorporated into the 1993 compilation video Traces of Death. Tourist Pit Dernitz leaves his safari vehicle to film a small pride of lions. As he walks closer to the animals, an unseen lion attacks him from behind. He struggles against the animal, but the other lions join in the attack and overwhelm him. He is eventually torn apart and eaten before the animals are driven off. The scene consists of two cameras' footage spliced together during the editing process. The authenticity of the sequence is still debated today. The film does indeed look genuine, especially since it would be much too dangerous of a stunt to stage. However, it is argued that the body of Dernitz looks like a replacement dummy towards the end of the footage. Also, the narrator mentions that the safari vehicles couldn't be used to scare away the lions because of the terrain. However, the terrain around the lions appears flat, and the cars are already only a few meters away. Other professional sources contend that the footage is real, and the errors in narration are due to fabrication by the film makers to make the scene more interesting. At approximately one minute, ten seconds into the sequence, the audio/video quality improves and Japanese subtitles are added. This is due to two different master sources used to produce the clip. The first minute is from the Palace Video VHS released in Australia in 1986. This video had this segment cut by the OFLC before released. The footage after the 1:10 mark is from a Japanese DVD with burnt on subtitles and contains all the footage missing from the Palace Video release. After the 2:14 mark, the footage returns to the Palace Video release for the duration of the sequence. The cinema verite style of this clip proved influential on Ruggero Deodato when he made the more notorious Cannibal Holocaust. Approximately one half of Deodato's film is shot in this manner.

[AmericanIllusions]

Get off my dad!!!!!!! The camera man panning in & out makes it look fake. Either way this is damn hilarious

[Curb Stomper]

I really wanted this to be real.. what rare footage it'd be..

I love the lion taking the camera at the end.

[Sunvang]

Fake...

[catalyzt]

Originally Posted by kellyhound ↗

Probably not.
This clip was used in traces of death and savage man savage original known as Ultime grida dalla savana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultime_grida_dalla_savana
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0155306/
Antonio Climati, cinematographer to Prosperi and Jacopetti in many Mondo films, teamed up with Mario Morra in 1974 to produce their own string of Mondo films, aptly named the "Savage Trilogy". Franco Prosperi also went on to produce these films. Climati and Morra were notorious for staging several scenes of their documentaries.

Some longer clip of that with narrator speaking

kelly thanks
i always wondered if this was real or not
there were many aspects of it that made me think it as not
but its still pretty famous
the key part of me thinking it wasnt real was most ppl wouldnt calmly film a guy being eaten alive or his kids screaming and watching
that was just odd

one of my first lion eating man videos tho
(that was a play on words)

[cortdb]

crazy if even some of it is real

[indybob]

Originally Posted by wildhazz ↗

Is this real?

I think it looks fake.I could see no blood.