Artivist Film Festival's Animal Advocacy Showcase, NYC

By Rational Animal intern, Nicole Mak

Edited and with contributions by Courtney Kistler

On January 26, 2012, in its eighth annual film tour and visit to New York City, the Artivist Film Festival and Artivist Awards showcased three films focusing on animal advocacy at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre. Founded in 2003, the Artivist Film Festival uses film to raise awareness for international human rights, children’s advocacy, environmental preservation, and animal advocacy. Each film sought to convey to its audience issues of the animal industry and why vegetarianism and veganism were necessary responses to these atrocities.

The first featured was Together: Dancing with Spinner Dolphins, a short film showing spinner dolphins and their curiosity of the unknown. Only a few minutes long, the film sought to evoke a smile from the audience as they witnessed a dance between a snorkeler and three spinner dolphins. This film reminded us how beautiful we perceive animals in the wild to be, and in comparison to the next two films, eased us into the idea of living peacefully and sustainably with animals.

The second film was called Farm to Fridge by Mercy for Animals. For me personally, it is the most graphic animal rights video I’ve ever seen. As a former omnivore converted pescatarian, I have seen my share of animal rights shock and awe videos. This one, however, didn’t hesitate to bombard the audience with clip after clip of animals on American farms (most of them were factory farms) being castrated, crushed, beaten and hacked in the most inhumane and nauseating ways imaginable. Narrated by
Oscar-nominee and TV actor, James Cromwell, this film takes you on an eye-opening exploration behind the closed doors of the nation’s industrial poultry, pig, dairy, and fish farms, hatcheries, and slaughter plants – revealing the often-unseen journey that animals make from the farm to the American fridge, and eventually to the serving plate.

View entire film online; order free copy.

As I looked at the viewers’ heads in my line of vision, I saw many were looking down. Gasps and whispered cries could be heard all around me as the film revealed that it was common to smash piglets to the ground—headfirst—as a way to euthanize them.

Five minutes into this film I told myself I would become a vegan.

Seeing so much gore when you don’t expect it can be very mind altering. I don't think anyone in the audience left that theater feeling unaffected by that film. It made you hypersensitive. Suddenly you couldn’t help but think about all the animal related items you’d seen that, prior to this experience, you wouldn’t have giv

en a second thought about. As the film played, my stomach felt cold and empty, and I wanted to look away. What convinced me to keep watching was that all of this is real. By looking away we are denying what we, as Americans, demand. The only way to change these horrific animal practices is to face the music. It was obvious what the film was asking us to do: become vegan.

While the first film closed off amidst smatterings of chitchat, the second film left the audience dead silent. The last film tried to comfort and then engage the audience. Vegucated sought to

bring back humor and warmth to the theatre. Filmed in 2005 New York City and at various spots in New England, this 80-minute film is about three omnivores who volunteer (for no compensation, other than several delicious meals, field trips, and life-changing learning experiences) to undergo a complete vegan transformation over the course of 6 weeks. The writer and executive producer, Marisa Miller Wolfson, starred in the film as the provider of this “vegucation” and as intermittent narrator. Similar in tactic to Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, Wolfson educated Brian, Ellen, and Tesla and the viewing audience on how to start from the ground up to become vegan.

Marisa definitely made the education fun by taking them to places like Moo Shoes in downtown NYC and Ooh Mah Nee farm animal sanctuary. At one point, the crew spontaneously decided to stop off at a factory farm property and walk right up to one of the buildings. Surprisingly, not one person came out of that building or surrounding area to ask questions. Just outside the building, they discovered an open truck wagon containing the carcasses of two pigs. On the rest of the drive home, the dialogue between Tesla and Brian was heated and passionate. They were truly embracing the facts and sad reality about farm animals in America.

I liked that the film showed each volunteer’s drop in blood pressure, cholesterol, and weight after the mere 6 week period without overemphasizing these metrics. The main focus, really, was to de-alienate veganism. In choosing volunteers who fit the majority of meat and dairy eating Americans and mentioning popular American foods that were already vegan (chocolate frosting??), the film allowed the audience to reconsider their mainstream perception of the vegan next door. Marisa interviewed people on the streets of New York in the beginning of the film, asking them if they could go vegan, and getting pretty much the same response from each one: "No.", "Nah." or "I don't think so." This film took a clever, creative approach and truly broke down that resistance, as exemplified by the three different people who took on the vegan challenge.

After watching From Farm to Fridge, I wanted to be vegan. Watching Vegucated brought encouragement. By seeing the small steps that the volunteers were taking, I realized that I was already taking those steps. The film left me feeling good. Happy for the newly converted vegan and vegetarian volunteers in the film, it gave me a sense that I could do it too. That’s why I’m starting on my road to veganism!

Food, Inc.

FOOD, INC.

Filmmaker, Robert Kenner, lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA.

Released nationwide on June 8th, Food, Inc. sets out to inform to public on what it has no way of knowing. Like any investigatory documentary, these directors and producers conducted interviews with key players and also were ignored or got the door slammed in their face by those purported as the perpetrators of some of the food crises our country has experienced, as well as the several risks consumers are putting themselves at with each bite of food.


My quick thoughts...
It's really good, although, I initially found it disturbing that the Director and Pollan and others still eat burgers, etc., despite their supposedly vast knowledge. The messages at the end ask the public to write to their senators/reps, know where their food is from by asking and checking labels, yet the whole movie is about how you can't trust the FDA/Agri government regulators and food industry heavyweights that control everything, because they're all bed fellows and all lie. So why they don't then promote veganism is odd, but I'd guess it's because they were also trying to help food growers, including organic animal food farmers.

I would say to someone who's seen it and is still on the fence about eating meat, to just go vegan in order to be on the safe side.

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From Gene Baur, Founder and Director of Farm Sanctuary
June 22, 2009

"I was able to see Food, Inc. over the weekend, and it was great to see that the theater was packed. The film’s popularity suggests we’re in the midst of a burgeoning food movement in the United States as consumers are finally learning about the abuses of factory farming and the importance of making informed food choices. Food, Inc. doesn’t explicitly promote a vegan lifestyle, but it does urge consumers to make a difference “one bite at a time.” Among several recommendations, the film urges citizens to plant a garden (even a small one) and to shop at farmer’s markets. The movie shows footage of chickens, pigs and cattle kept on industrialized farms, along with other affronts to animal welfare. A non-industrialized farmer is interviewed and criticizes factory farming. He describes how confined animals are more likely to be contaminated and diseased, and that people who mistreat animals are also more likely to mistreat humans. Ironically, he’s making these comments while chickens are being slaughtered at his farm and he’s pulling out their guts on camera. The film also talks about how agribusiness bullies farmers and citizens who challenge the status quo, including through costly litigation and promoting laws to make it illegal to take photos at factory farms. Factory farming requires secrecy to continue as it has, but Food, Inc. is helping promote more discussion and awareness. That’s a very good thing."
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COMMENTS:

BR: I want to go but fear I will have to see more animals abused, if there is any of that in there, I will choose not to go? Is there any does anyone know?

CK (me) : @BR -- Yep, there are images of animal abuse but only as a necessity to inform not necessarily shock, as other films do (for good reason). I'd encourage you to see it, though, as it may affirm your convictions against cruelty and for a vegan diet (hopefully). It is never easy to watch any living creature be abused, but this movie is educational in its depictions of the reality of the way animals are treated, in addtion to the way the poor farmers working for the monstrous food corps are, in a way, imprisoned.
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You can learn a lot on your own here, at the site for the Center for Food Safety. Interested in veganism? Educate yourself first, as I did, to be sure you are making a decision you will not back out on, you can defend to others that will inevitably question you and your choices -- and, normally, I get tons of questions, because people are curious, want to know, maybe are considering a veg diet themselves.

I learned that I had no choice, if I was to uphold one of my core values, which is to act and be in consistent with my beliefs, one of the strongest being that animal cruelty is wrong and I will not contribute to it. Eating animal food, consuming products, such as clothing, made of animals, contributes to animal cruelty. It's very simple, however not easy to put into practice, so give it time, if this is something you would like to transition toward -- that being a cruelty-free lifestyle.

As for the film, it's incredibly scary that our food can so easily be poisonous to our body. I have looked up green markets in NYC, so that I can purchase more locally grown foods. Check this out, find one near you: http://www.cenyc.org/files/gmkt/map.pdf

Why are the rules different for animals? Can we answer this?

If we choose to treat each other humanely and remain intolerant of violence on our fellow man...why are the rules different for animals?

Remember a time you felt total utter fear or anguish, and imagine that was your entire life day in and day out...

Goldfinger's John Feldman wrote this song for PETA, who put together this footage; there are two versions in existence, one concentrates purely on factory farms, this one covers a number of industries that abuse animals for money, including the farming industry.

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There is a reason the animals struggle and fight and/or try to escape when humans in factory farms, laboratories, fur farms, or an American household threaten, hurt, torture, abuse, and try to kill them. Humans react the same way.

Imagine someone tore you from your family and threw you in a cage...for the rest of your life. Your time out of the cage is spent strapped to an uncomfortable, painful apparatus you do not understand or know is going to get worse or ever stop. Back in the cage you suffer from the same fear, anguish, and mental deterioration that prisoners in solitary confinement do. The only difference is that prisoners get out of solitary confinement and often out of prison altogether.

Why? Because they have rights.

Imagine you are torn from your family at birth and put in a small crate for the first few years of your life. You cannot turn around, your muscles do not develop properly, you are injected with foreign substances, and you cannot express to anyone the pain and discomfort you are feeling day in and day out. Imagine then that you are so crippled by the unnatural environment that you are left to stumble in a pen, hit and abused by unknown beings who are doing it purely for their own amusement, because you are no good to them, your price tag is gone, you are nothing except an object of abuse...for no reason. You cannot get away, you try to fight, through your pain, your fear, but you can do nothing. You cannot express that what is happening to you is wrong and someone needs to help you. You cannot ask another to punish those who torture you.

Why? Because you have no rights.

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Do we have a right to live? Yes.
Do you have a right to be free from fear and oppression and harm? Yes.
You are lucky.

Animals have a will to live...the creatures you see in this video don't want to die, and they want to be free with others of their kind. That's what we feel and do.

How is it different for these animals?
Why do we rob them of the things we take for granted for our own lives and which are protected by laws, by each other?

What is the reason these animals are subjected to such suffering? The reason is the humans just do it. Humans abuse animals for fun, but mostly humans abuse and exploit animals for money, and they don't hold back.

Animal protection laws are not working; they are not being abided by; they are not being enforced.
What can you do?

Do not give money to industries that harm animals. Try transitioning to a vegan diet, do not buy clothing made from animal products such as leather and wool, and try to learn more about the products you buy, such as Splenda, made by Proctor and Gamble, a company that tests its consumer products on animals.

Check out this list of companies that test on animals, and try to avoid purchasing products manufactured by them. Opt for products by companies that do not test on animals -- search by category here.

It's not easy -- we strive to conserve, waste less, recycle...if we are seeking to help our planet, why shouldn't we also seek to help the animals we share it with? We are all here on the same ground, breathing the same air, and while we have rights...we have obligations. For those that do not have rights, we are obligated to protect them by making informed decisions and helping to educate our peers.

The next time you need a hug, you call a friend for help, you breathe a fresh breath of air in the comfort of pure freedom...remember those who do not have even the simplest of things such as that. When you hold your cat, walk your dog, or enjoy watching animals in their natural environment, remember those who were robbed of this.

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After watching this and other videos like it, remember that it is okay to feel sad, angry, and sick...

but even if you cannot answer these questions, know that you are not helpless.

When Animals Answer to a Kosher Power

IN AMERICA, KOSHER MEAT PROVES JUST AS CRUEL

Got a message the other day..."My friend Katie is Jewish and said that Kosher meat is all regulated by the rabbis and humanely slaughtered"

KOSHER HUMANE?
So I checked with my friend who works at Farm Sanctuary and is covering the farm industry day in and day out as part of her job. She is a savvy one too, who knows fact from exaggeration and the ineffectiveness of the latter. I also looked up the definition of "kosher", and it seems rather open to interpretation, as methods for 21st century slaughter are derived from the descriptions of what is "clean" and "unclean" meat. The Torah states which animals Jews can and cannot eat, and beef, chicken, and fish, of course are permitted, and pork is not. Methods of slaughter are very specific, however, which is problematic in the context of the business of churning out animal product for profit. Since the Kosher meat we typically find in grocery stores is from large-scale meat plants and slaughter houses, the chances that such specific, fine-tuned instructions are followed to the tee and are also overseen by the appropriate entities is unlikely.

In America, therefore, Kosher meat is some of the cruelest meat available. Despite the intentions in some scripture to make the process a certain way, which some may deem humane, given the economy of America when it comes to our mass consumption of meat products and the profit opportunities in meat processing, the intentions are often lost and cast aside. That said, however, I understand the intent behind the Kosher slaughter laws, but in practice the one instrument, one slice method is actually very brutal. They are not shocked with a head bolt to render them senseless, which is what is supposed to happen on factory farms. So Kosher farm workers have to develop other methods of how to make death quick for animals like cows and chickens. The laws governing how animals are slaughtered is that it should be quick, with a sharp knife to slit the throat and esophagus.

Despite the humane intention and spirit of the Jewish dietary laws, there are no standards to ensure that Kosher slaughter is any less cruel than conventional slaughter. The problem is that like most slaughterhouses, profit is maximized. Which means that as many animals are killed as quickly as possible. This is what leads all slaughterhouses to be brutal, because if they miss (it is, after all, a two thousand pound animal, writhing in fear for its imminent death) then they don't do over. It continues on the chain.

MEAT CRUELTY
Even if Kosher slaughter sometimes is more effective at rendering the animal senseless quickly (there is still pain involved), it doesn't change the fact that all animal agriculture in this country exists with cruelty. The feedlots, the unnatural diet, the constant cycles of impregnation, the environmental disaster, the warehouses of factory farms, the neglect of illness and injury, the downed animals left to suffer. Animals are commodities and are treated as such every day, in every part of the world, by people of every religion.

GREED AND VIOLATIONS IN FOOD INDUSTRIES AND BEYOND
And managers of meat and meatpacking plants, Kosher or not, can equally succumb to greed as well. Late last year, an Iowa plant, Agriprocessors, Inc., was raided for hiring children, undocumented workers, and for dangerous work environments -- it was a Kosher plant. This facility was documented for seven weeks by a PETA investigator, and the atrocities against the cattle they slaughtered one after another, in bulk quantity, day in and day out, are gut-wrenching. Check out the Rabbis overseeing this type of slaughter (read quotes from rabbis and video on left side), and let me know if you think what they do is humane.

Bear in mind that no organization or business other than an animal or other rights org will distribute video like this. PETA, the Humane Society, WSPA, and others like them shoot the undercover footage at factory farms. At animal testing labs, like the one of the New Iberia Research place in Louisiana, the Humane Society footage was shot by an HSUS person who worked at the lab undercover. There's a reason why these images aren't disseminated freely by the businesses and people in them. You can also bet that when one bit of footage comes out, there is the same activity going on behind closed doors all over the country. It's not easy to do these investigations, let alone actually prove the violations of various sorts. That said, we actually don't know the extent to which the AWA and municipal animal protection laws are egregiously violated. Like with illegal hand gun possession, drug rings, and muggings, we only know about it when perpetrators are caught and charged.

COMPASSION FOR ANIMALS IS IN THE HEART OF THE CULTURE
Jewish culture widely expresses compassion for animals and animal life, in the phrase tsa'ar ba'alei chaim. It is not surprising then that prominent Jews who were also vegetarian spoke about it and about the humane issues behind it.

Jewish leaders, such as Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-91),winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978, who witnessed slaughter in Poland at a very young age, which is when he decided to never eat meat, including fish, ever again, advocated for vegetarian diets but even moreso for humane treatment of animals. He has also unofficially been quoted as saying, "There will never be any peace in the world as long as we eat animals."

Albert Einstein migrated to a vegetarian diet toward the last years of his life, which he remarks on in a letter written to Hans Muehsam, and dated March 30, 1954, which was about 1 year before Einstein died: "So I am living without fats, without meat, without fish, but am feeling quite well this way. It always seems to me that man was not born to be a carnivore." He has also unofficially been quoted as saying, "If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals."

This is a great site for exploring Jewish culture's possible advocacy for vegetarianism: http://www.jewishveg.com/. Any scripture or holy literature is open to interpretation, so neither meat-eating or meat-avoiding is the hard and fast dietary rule in Judaism, among many other religions.

The Animal Rights Orgs' Undercover Investigations...and becoming an educated, informed consumer

People for the Ethical Treatment of animals conducted an undercover investigation at an Iowa Hormel pig factory farm.

From PETA.org: “For more than three months, PETA went undercover at an Iowa pig factory farm, which supplies piglets who are raised and killed for Hormel products. PETA found rampant cruelty to animals committed by workers and supervisors. The farm changed ownership and management during PETA's investigation, but that made no difference to the animals who were born and confined there: Abuse and neglect were widespread during PETA's entire investigation.”

PETA is one of the few organizations that actually monitors this closely the practices at factory farms. Lawmakers and legislators do not go in with their cameras to film what they are supposed to be regulating. This is raw video, this is not edited, so please be aware that much of this is very difficult to watch – yet this is reality. These are people in OUR country committing such brutal, cruel acts on animals. These people can be walking next to you outside, driving down the highway on the same mile as you, sitting next table over at a restaurant eating the very animals they bloodied, tortured, and in the case of dozens of piglets, beat to death just earlier that day.

I commend those at PETA who undertook this painful assignment. Very few are capable of carrying out filming something so horrific and disturbing. While you and I watch the video and hear the pig screaming for mercy as a farmer beats a pig on his back and stomach with a metal gate rod, a person with a camera is there witnessing it him or herself. Most, including myself, would be incapable of standing there and not trying to stop any of those men from abusing the animals. But in order for us to become educated, informed consumers, we need groups like PETA and the Humane Society of the United States, whose footage from puppy mills to animal testing labs has been aired on network TV, out there taking on these tasks of exposing animal abuse and then taking action on stopping it, as well as educating and informing we consumers about how we too can take action to stop it.

Although these videos are very difficult to watch, I would encourage everyone to watch for at least a couple seconds – because this is not a TV show or movie, this is real and these are people in our country committing such atrocities. I hope that fewer and fewer people turn a blind eye to this, because it reflects a part of our population that lacks sensitivity, that lacks compassion toward life in general, and that exemplify the cowardice in attacking a living being who is rendered helpless and defenseless.

The factory farm employees in this individual video represent hundreds, perhaps thousands, of others just like them who perhaps wouldn’t allow cameras in their factory farms.

Please understand that without large animal advocacy organizations with resources and finances to carry out these documentaries of abuse, we would not have the opportunities to learn the reality of an industry we have daily interaction with.

This article conveys the other side. A writer for the Farm & Ranch Guide wrote about a Minnesota factory farm who was exposed for abuses, just as the one in Iowa was. Their employees committing atrocities against the animals on their farms was caught in real life, on camera.

You will read that through most of the article, the MowMar farm representatives are defensive: “We're here to demonstrate this can happen to you. All of us in the industry, and all sizes and types of operations, need to be prepared and try to prevent this type of action from happening...The amount of extra time and strain it has put on us, we really don't want anyone else to have to go through."

On the experience: “It was a coordinated effort of many industry partners…makes things go smoother and quicker, and easier to defend…I think we did pretty good, but we could have been more prepared.”

The reporter finally said that it is very important that applications are completed and that the farming employer conducts a background check.That this needs to be reiterated in the context of an article like this is appalling. Furniture companies do background checks, my dad’s dealership conducts background checks. Shouldn’t that go without saying for a company who relies on individuals’ proper handling of live animals in order to profit?

You will also read toward the end an admission that proper regulations, employee screening processes and training, as well as management consistently monitoring their businesses on the ground is lacking. The only victims are the animals, as each of these farms continues to employee people and make money. If their only motivation to treat animals humanely is so they don’t have a PR crisis on their hands, then I’ll take that. It’s not the reason I’d prefer, but if animals’ lives are in better care, then I would call PETA’s actions successful. Their aim is to expose the abuse not change things overnight or solve the problem in one day or with one sole investigation.

Lastly, the only way to help stop these atrocities is to not support the business. Go veg. Click here to read about all the reasons why it’s better for you, for the environment, for all living beings with whom we share Earth.

If you do not add to the demand, Hormel and other meat-producing corporations will not have means to keep producing the supply. And as demand for vegetarian products rise, farmers will shift toward cultivating these products, away from the slaughtering of animals.