The Animals Film
2h 10m
Directed by Victor Schonfeld & Myriam Alaux • Documentary • With Julie Christie, Richard Ryder, Roger Ulrich, Lord Houghton, Peter Singer • 1981 • 136 minutes
Documentary about the abuse of animals in factory farming, sport and research. Made over a period of two years in Britain and the U.S., includes interviews, clandestinely shot footage of stag hunting and pharmaceutical research, and rare material of the military use of animals for training, weapons testing and nuclear research.
"The most impressive film maudit, possibly too hot to handle... stuffed with footage never before shown, and a wealth of newly-shot material often taken undercover, which documents... mankind's degradation, exploitation, and often pointless torture, of the creatures who share our planet. ...Proves, beyond contradiction, that this behaviour is not just random or personal but part of our organised society, with drug companies, government departments, scientists, military authorities, factory farmers, university research laboratories, for their own selfish ends, for profit in money or prestige. I do not know when I have come out of a screening so moved by the power of the cinema as a medium to transform the entire sensibility of an audience." —Sunday Times