#}
For many of us, they are faithful companions and good friends; for some, they are merely hunt targets or an industrial product. Some want to observe and understand them, while others use them for scientific experiments. Human-animal relations take on many different aspects - they may be filled with fascination and a sense of responsibility, but they are also often marked by harm and suffering.
VOD.MDAG.PL films talk about animal rights and various dimensions of human relations with animals. You can buy a one-time access to the films for PLN 9.50 or get a pass for several films!
DOLPHIN MAN, dir. Lefteris Charitos
Discover the story and legacy of Jacques Mayol, the legendary free-diver whose life became the inspiration for Luc Besson’s cult-movie “The Big Blue”. “Dolphin Man” draws us into the world of Jacques Mayol, capturing his compelling journey and immersing viewers into the sensory and transformative experience of free-diving. From the Mediterranean to Japan and from India to the Bahamas, we meet Mayol’s closest friends and family, including his children Dottie and Jean-Jacques, and world free-diving champions William Trubridge, Mehgan Heaney-Grier and Umberto Pelizzari, to reveal the portrait of a man who reached the limits of the human body and mind, not just to break records but hoping to discover the deeper affinity between human beings and the sea. Narrated by Jean-Marc Barr, the actor who famously portrayed Mayol in “The Big Blue”, the film weaves together rare film archive from the 1950s onwards, with stunning contemporary underwater photography, to discover how the “dolphin man” revolutionized free-diving and brought a new consciousness to our relationship with the sea and our inner-selves.
GENESIS 2.0, dir. Christian Frei, Maxim Arbugaev
On the remote New Siberian Islands in the Arctic Ocean, hunters search for tusks of extinct mammoths. One day, they discover a surprisingly well-preserved mammoth carcass. Resurrecting the woolly mammoth is a first manifestation of the next great technological revolution – genetics. It may well turn our world upside down.
THE WHALE FROM LORINO, dir. Maciej Cuske
Chukotka, a place located on the edge of Siberia, where freezing winter lasts ten months. It's a severe land, where only the strongest are able to survive. One of the oldest Siberian tribes has been living there for centuries. Its tradition, culture and life in harmony with nature had been brutally destroyed by the Soviet regime. Since the USSR collapsed the tribe members have been trying to survive, in spite of the lack of wisdom coming from their ancestors and lack of hope for the future. One of the last sources of life and tradition for the Chukchi people is hunting for whales, whose fate is also threatened. For the Chukchi, whales carry hope to survive the next winter. As soon as the land of Lorino warms up from the sun, the hunting begins. It’s a struggle of two worlds which approach the edge of existence during each battle.
PROJECT NIM, dir. James Marsh
In November 1973 a baby chimpanzee is born in the cage of a primate research center in Oklahoma. A few days later, his mother receives a sedative injection. She loses consciousness, and her small child, crying in fear, is brutally taken from her forever. The little chimpanzee is named Nim and is given to a psychology graduate who is already the mother of three children. For an appropriate fee, she is to raise him as her own child. This is how the "Nim project" comes into effect, one of the most radical experiments in history, which aims to prove that a chimpanzee, raised like a human, can learn to communicate through language.
EATING ANIMALS, dir. Christopher Quinn
Directed and produced by Christopher Quinn (Sundance award winner God Grew Tired of Us), Eating Animals tells the story of the beginning of the end of factory farming. Produced with Academy Award winner Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer, the film is the feature-length adaptation of Foer’s critically acclaimed book of the same name that starts out with a simple question — where do our eggs, dairy and meat come from?
Through the intimate narratives of several farmers dedicated to bringing their trade – and the way we eat – back to its roots, the film explores the notion of stepping away from the practices of the past 40 years that have polluted our environment, endangered our health, and caused us all to be complicit in the inhumane treatment of animals. Looking at the costs we’ve incurred as our country has become dominated by massive industrial complexes designed to feed the masses, Eating Animals paints a picture of a future where traditional farming is no longer a distant memory, but is instead the only way forward.
SAFARI, dir. Urlich Seidl
Africa. In the wild expanses, where bushbucks, impalas, zebras, gnus and other creatures graze by the thousands, they are on holiday. German and Austrian hunting tourists drive through the bush, lie in wait, stalk their prey. They shoot, sob with excitement and pose before the animals they have bagged. A vacation movie about killing, a movie about human nature.
