Casting for I'm Vegan has now begun!

I'm Vegan is a series of short documentary profiles that will feature vegans from all walks of life, perhaps including you! The project is is intended to address preconceptions about vegans and veganism, which may increase normalization of and appreciation for veganism. It is also expected that I'm Vegan will be a catalyst for some viewers to go vegan. Completed profiles will be distributed for free over the web so that anyone can share the videos with family, friends, and visitors to their own sites. A full-length documentary is also in the works.

To be considered as a potential profile subject for I'm Vegan, please send me the following before January 15th:

• 2 recent digital snapshots, one close-up and one full-length.


• Your city, state, and zipcode.


• Answers to the following questions:

1. How long have you been vegan?

2. Why are you vegan? (and/or What was your "A-ha!" moment?)

3. What does veganism mean to you?

4. What is your favorite thing about being vegan?

5. What is your least favorite thing about being vegan?

6. What are your favorite and frequent pastimes or hobbies?

7. Please share any kind of interesting story related to your being vegan (interaction with family members, roommates, schoolmates, co-workers, or experiences at restaurants, cafeterias, etc., etc.).

8. Why should you be interviewed for I'm Vegan?

Our route will take us all over the U.S., so if you live in a smaller town but are still highway accessible your submission will be considered.

Become a fan of I'm Vegan at Facebook
Become a friend of I'm Vegan at MySpace

I like to hear from you. Comment below or email me.

Enjoy AAFL? Use the permalink icon to share this entry with your friends or to link it from your blog, submit to a service using the share button below, and consider making a small donation to support this site and my work. Thanks!

Labels: documentary, imvegan, movies, vegan

I am very pleased to announce that I'm Vegan is now fully funded! Please click on the "imvegan" label below this post to learn more about the journey so far. Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible!

This is only the beginning, though. As I move forward, I will be blogging more on the project here. I have yet to decide whether and when I will establish a separate site for the project. If you have web skillz, please get in touch and we can talk about it.

One of my next major steps will be to "cast" the vegans I'd like to use in this project, and I will solicit that information here and elsewhere once I am ready.

On a side note, my apologies for how long it is taking to get the Utilitarianism AR101 post together. I wrote around 4000 words on the topic, but I have been very busy with a variety of projects so I have not had time to work this unwieldy subject down into 1200-1600 words. I think I will be able to start editing it this week, and will aim to post something in no more than 7-10 days.

I like to hear from you. Comment below or email me.

Enjoy AAFL? Use the permalink icon to share this entry with your friends or to link it from your blog, submit to a service using the share button below, and consider making a small donation to support this site and my work. Thanks!

Labels: fundraising, imvegan, movies, veganism

I wanted to update everyone on the fundraising progress for I'm Vegan, the video project I first announced back in April. My total funding goal for the project is $25,000, $3,000 of which I received at the beginning of the year as a private donation. I set up a campaign to raise the remaining $22,000 at The Point, and proceeded to raise nearly $4,000 from 30 people in 2 months. Pledges ranged from $10 to $1,000. Thanks to everyone who has committed funds so far!

Special thanks have to go out now to an anonymous donor that mailed in a $9,000 check, which was basically intended to halve the amount of money still needed to reach the total funding goal. That is a huge push and a wonderful vote of confidence! It also means I only need $9,125 more in pledges at The Point in order to start production on I'm Vegan. The $9,000 takes the campaign at The Point from 18% complete to 58%, so my next milestone is 60%. I only need $325 to get to that number, so please pledge today if you can.

For those that missed the original post and don't feel like clicking through the above link, I'm Vegan is a series of short documentary profiles that aim for long-term impact as an online series normalizing veganism, and thus it is an ongoing form of advocacy. It's personal, intimate and busts stereotypes. What's more, the project is relatively low-budget and is being funded through a non-profit, which means the donations are tax deductible.

The great thing is, unlike traditional fundraisers, The Point works in such a way that no one parts with their hard-earned cash until enough people pledge funds to reach the campaign goal of $22,000 (once complete funding is received, it will be donated to the non-profit that is sponsoring the project with needed equipment and other expenses).

For more details on the project, or to donate now, please visit its campaign page at The Point. Thanks in advance for your support. Share this post (or the campaign page) far and wide!


I like to hear from you. Comment below or email me.

Enjoy AAFL? Use the permalink icon to share this entry with your friends or to link it from your blog, submit to a service using the share button below, and consider making a small donation to support this site and my work. Thanks!

Labels: activism, documentary, fundraising, imvegan, movies, veganism

You know, a lot of people have written about HBO Documentary Films' I Am An Animal - The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA, both before and after Monday night's premiere. The problem with trying to get into this is that it would really take some quality time to take a 75 minute documentary and break down where I stand on it, much less discuss PeTA and its founder (the doc really does a good job of making it clear that PeTA is Newkirk). Well, the real problem is that I just don't have that kind of time at the moment.

Regardless, I do think people from all walks of life ought to watch this film (schedule) and think deeply about what they see and hear. Despite the impossibility of covering its subject matter fully in this running time, there's never been a more thorough look at the organization and it's founder, Ingrid Newkirk. There is much that will shock, amuse, inform and horrify viewers. At the very least, an HBO platform offers a fairly mainstream way of introducing people to a spectrum of animal activism, particularly anyone curious to learn more about PeTA than what they've heard from opponents or the organization's own media stunts.

You might also be interested in the video response from Ingrid Newkirk (Video 2), and an interview with her at WikiNews.

• HBO: I Am An Animal home page


• HBO: I Am An Animal message boards


• HBO: I Am An Animal filmmaker interview

Labels: movies, PETA

Cinematical: 'Your Mommy Kills Animals' DVD Pulled by Amazon

I know many people have been looking forward to finally being able to see Curt Johnson's film. I was able to catch it over the summer at AR2007, and thought it was far better than I expected, so I would like for others to be able to see it, too.

But it looks like someone doesn't want you to see this film. According to a statement released by representatives of distributor Halo-8 Entertainment, Amazon.com and a number of other retailers have pulled the DVD from distribution:

[the] statement quotes an unnamed retailer who claims that this is "due to legal threats from a well-known Washington lobbyist who represents major corporations in the tobacco and food industries."

In other words, the deceptively named lobbyists-cum-non-profit-front-group Center for Consumer Freedom, and the disease industries' flacks over there, Rick Berman and his flunkie, David Martosko. Martosko appears throughout the film, so he can't complain about not having enough screen time.

I've read and heard that CCF actually put money into this film, but I don't know whether or not this is true. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if they tried to fund a hatchet job on the animal rights world. Just don't cry any tears for them being disappointed over the final product, a more balanced work than anything they would have dreamt up on their own. [UPDATE: Jennifer at AnimalBlawg did some research on this and found that CCF did, indeed, put hundreds of thousands of dollars into the film. Ta-da! Not surprised.]

On the other hand, this post over at Stanifesto suggests that the film still works as a right-wing hit piece, saying that the divisions it portrays are meant to sow seeds of discord in a singular movement. But Johnson captured a very real discord, and I have yet to hear of this movie exacerbating it. Many AR insiders will recognize the schism witnessed in the film, and acknowledge that the divisions are real, and deep. We've seen a lot of discussion on this blog and elsewhere on the topic, so I won't rehash them here. As a side note to this, perhaps in acknowledgment of this growing divide, Cinematical actually uses the term animal rights movements. Plural. How often do you see that?

You can still buy the DVD here. And, lest there is any confusion over Johnson's leanings, his next film is called Pets on Your Plate.

Labels: CCF, Center For Consumer Freedom, movies, PETA

I don't have time now to fully review Rob Stewart's Sharkwater, which opened in theaters this past weekend. However, I don't think it will stay in theaters much longer unless more people turn out for it. I saw a 9:30 showing of the film last night in Cambridge, and if me and my friends from the BVA hadn't been there, only one person would have been in that room. Hopefully it did better on Friday and Saturday, and is doing better elsewhere.

While Sharkwater repeats itself too often and feels a bit too long, it is involving throughout, and I certainly hope that it is nominated for an Academy Award. It's done well at film festivals, but more people need to become aware of its message. If it's playing near you, this is a documentary that you should see on the big screen now instead of waiting to see on DVD, if for no other reason than to be amazed by the underwater photography. But, more importantly, the sooner the word gets out about sharks as creatures to be respected and protected instead of feared, the better chance we have of raising the awareness that could save them from being wiped out (for something as stupid as shark fin soup, no less). Check your local papers or online for theaters near you.

Sharkwater at MySpace.

Labels: marine rescue, movies, Sea Shepherd, sharks

PBS | POV: The Chance of the World Changing (July 17th, 10pm)

Tomorrow night, tune in (or set your PVR) for PBS's POV, a documentary series exemplifying a personal brand of storytelling. For 20 years now, American Documentary has been producing the award-winning series, which aims to stimulate a public dialogue about some of America's most important issues.

In this case, director Eric Daniel Metzgar and co-producer Nell Carden Grey's The Chance of the World Changing highlights the plight of endangered turtles by focusing on a would-be savior, Richard Ogust, who cared for 1,200 turtles in his Manhattan apartment at one point, including several species thought to be extinct in the wild. His journey is traced from an awakening at a New York restaurant through to physical and material exhaustion, and some very hard decisions that may have animal activists thinking hard.

Metzgar says, "When one is fraught with immeasurable responsibility, an excess of strength, not gloom, powers the day. And that strength, again and again, in the face of all obstacles, is what we filmed." I think many of us will relate to this struggle.

One of the great things about POV is their award-winning interactive web components, including filmmaker interviews, talkback forums, the ability to ask the filmmakers a question, follow-ups on the films' subjects and more, so take a look. If you watch the documentary, please share your thoughts in the Comments below.

Check your local listings

Image courtesy of American Documentary, Inc.
Photo by Andy Amsbaugh

Labels: exotic animals, movies, turtles, wildlife, wildlife trade

I came home moments ago from seeing Mike White's Year of the Dog, and wanted to get my thoughts down while they were fairly fresh. Be warned that some of you may consider a few things I write below to be "spoilers." Also bear in mind that the film is currently only playing in Los Angeles and New York. The studio division, Paramount Vantage, actually asked audience members to fill out surveys that may perhaps be used to help market an expansion of the film.

Year of the Dog portrays the transformation--the self-realization, really--of Peggy (Molly Shannon), a woman whose beloved canine companion, Pencil, dies unexpectedly. The writer/director, Mike White, has had a rather successful run as a screenwriter (Nacho Libre, The School of Rock, The Good Girl, Orange County), and this film marks his first time directing one of his own scripts.

White is (evidently a sometime-)vegan, transformed similarly by his own experience with a cat, but he knows that movies are, first and foremost, entertainment. Of course, this means that a story needs to be told, and it has to go somewhere, typically climaxing at some previously inconceivable point that has major ramifications for the protagonist. Unfortunately, in this and many other movies, such a necessity often leads to story points late in the film that some viewers find objectionable for whatever reason.

I wish I could recommend Year of the Dog unreservedly, but I did have some concerns I'd like to share with you. Before I get in to those, I do want to say that some vegans and animal rights activists are likely to enjoy the film (despite the fact that it couldn't be made without actually using animals). There is much for such audiences to relate to in the film--this is Peggy's "vegan story," after all--and it is a refreshing to see entertainment that speaks to how we see the world. When can you say that? (I think I smell a Genesis Award in the coming...)

While I can potentially see some positive outcomes for animals and their advocates as this film is seen by more people, there are also some potential negatives that concern me. As a vegan animal rights activist, it's hard to say how much these concerns are warranted. It would have been helpful many times during the screening if I could have read the minds of those around me. I wanted to know how the general public perceived certain lines, plot points, or character choices that held great meaning for someone like myself.

To knock down one of the more obvious potential negatives, it is possible that the obvious links to PETA--certainly one of the most recognized animal protection groups on the planet--will discredit certain aspects of the film in some people's minds. I can understand adding the "brand value" of the organization, but there is a possibility that negative associations with PETA may cause the information incorporated into the storyline to be suspect for some audience members.

All the same, White sends Peggy on a journey that he clearly wants the audience to share. He doesn't shrink from showing close-ups of hens captive in battery cage egg operations, birds crammed in cages as they are transported by truck, a cow with mastitis, and so on. Peggy does, in fact, go vegan.

On the flip side, this choice is driven by an interesting relationship with Newt (Peter Sarsgaard), who works at the local SPCA where Peggy takes Pencil for medical treatment before he dies. Newt gets in touch with her to suggest she adopt Valentine, an abused dog with special needs, and he offers to help her train him. They end up spending time together and, in addition to turning her on to a plant-based diet, she develops feelings for the sexually ambiguous vegan. While many people have been drawn toward veganism by someone they cared about, there are some problems with this arrangement, at least to my mind.

It's not that this set-up doesn't make the characters more interesting. It's just that we see her filling a rather large hole in her life with another animal lover who can't return her affections. Also, Newt is seen as effeminate, which perhaps plays into the "soy makes you gay" contingent. Everything is so representative in art, it seems. There's numerous other little brushstrokes that, while they make for richer characters, don't do vegans any favors. I love that White doesn't make anyone perfect in his movies, but it's hard not to think about how people watching this movie will perceive vegans after they come out of it, especially since most people may not be aware it was written and directed by a vegan.

Most of the strengths of this piece, and much of White's writing, is in the details, the flourishes that generate insight, reveal character, and make everything seem more real yet quirky at the same time. After all, doesn't everyone have their own quirks? Through these grace notes, White captures a lot of key moments that reminded me of incidents in my own life. Perhaps that biases me, but it seemed that these knowing details were perhaps the most effective in getting audience members to empathize with Peggy, or at least to understand how she sees the world differently from most people now.

Many animal rights activists and vegans will nod with familiarity, roll their eyes, or perhaps even laugh and smile as they hear protestations of certain characters when they say they eat free range and organic. We will recognize her look of disgust when she sees her friend's fiance tearing flesh from the barbecued ribs of a cow. This last moment in particular seemed highly effective in conveying Peggy's state of mind to the audience with whom I saw the film.

But grace notes don't add up enough to really help the audience identify with Peggy and understand how she ends up doing the things she does, like forging her boss's signature to donate hundreds of dollars to animal sanctuaries or sign petitions. I mean, it would never occur to me that someone would do this, and it compromises her character quite seriously, which is to some extent necessitated by the dramatic storytelling conventions, I suppose. Still, I can only just understand her desperation to help animals enough that I see how it's possible for her to go there, even though I can't fathom doing it myself. I can only wonder what someone who isn't an animal advocate would think.

What I wanted to see was a way in to Peggy that everyone could relate to. After all, many people have lost pets, but it sure hasn't made everyone become a vegan animal rights activist. If so, we would certainly be living in a much different world! I imagine my expectations were rather unrealistic. Even if Mike White could figure out how to get everyone inside Peggy's head and truly experience her transformation for themselves, it's possible they may not have allowed themselves to connect. If there's one thing I've learned as an animal advocate, there's no one approach that affects everyone, and some people seem like they will never get it, or allow themselves to, anyway. I just worry that Peggy is as much of an outsider to the audience at the end of the movie as she was at the beginning, if not more so.

Peggy's niece gives me one more reason to hope this isn't the case. She was the one other human character that validated her to some meaningful degree, children being more sensitive to animal suffering in general. But even this gets dicey. At one point in the film, Peggy takes her niece to an animal sanctuary without permission, and then tries to take her to a "poultry" processing plant, though that mission is aborted at the front gates of the facility. There's some humor in there, but there is also discomfort in the way she sort of hijacks this child's understanding of what is real, considering the way her parents keep her in a little bubble. In the end, though, it seems her niece is the one person that gets what it means to be kind to animals, and she upsets her mother quite a bit when she tells her she doesn't want a ham sandwich!

Despite White's gift for nuance, there is rather a lot of astonishingly frank dialogue between the characters, much of which seemingly does little to move the story forward. While these plainspoken passages about animal exploitation do speak to Peggy's own journey in understanding the horrors of animal abuse, including fur and animal testing, it all felt almost too direct or "on-the-nose" to me, and I wonder whether might have come off preachy to the average person. I just don't know. It certainly is unusual, if not refreshing, to see these issues broached so openly in a narrative film. Again, I wished I could have read the minds of those around me during this film so I could better evaluate the impact of this approach.

I did like that my fellow viewers were exposed to so many horrors during the film (not graphically so), as well as the joy of rescued animals at a sanctuary, but I can't help wishing it had been portrayed more subtly and artfully. I think a lot of this directness would have been more engaging if the audience was brought into a state of understanding that drew them in to Peggy's point of view, whereas the effect may have actually been more distancing. This is one of those complaints that would probably be less of an issue had Peggy been someone that audience members could find themselves caring about and relating to more.

Instead, as both a realistic portrayal of some people, and a dramatic way to move the story forward, even the sweet Newt "lets her down" and she becomes even more withdrawn when it comes to other people. Of course, animals aren't perfect either, as the abused dog she adopted at Newt's suggestion bites her hand. Despite this experience, she rescues 15 more dogs from being killed, ultimately becoming a mini-hoarder as her life spirals out of control and her place is destroyed by all the dogs. Yes, we are getting close to reaching the climax here. You have to raise the stakes, right? True enough, but this also makes her look crazy to everyone in the film, and likely to most of the people watching it.

Peggy reinforces the notion that "animal people" are not "people people." While I have certainly met my share of those people in the animal protection movement and could be accused of the same personality at various points in my life, I worry that this is a stereotype, and serves to further distance the audience from relating to Peggy or otherwise connecting with the idea that being more compassionate to animals or being vegan could be right for them. Instead, she's one of "those people." The only time she feels like she gets other people--the only time she seems to feel entirely comfortable in her own skin--is when she is surrounded by other activists headed to a demonstration against testing cosmetics on rabbits.

Unfortunately, the nature of movies is that character development is necessarily compressed (and often engaging in a heightened portrayal of reality), further enhancing this somewhat crazy characterization. Fortunately, no one in a Mike White film is portrayed as 100% right or perfect. Everyone in Peggy's life has some fault and, just like animals, is an individual. While Peggy might have the wide-eyed finger-wagging touch of the newly-converted, her sister-in-law declaims that no, she's not wearing mink; it's rabbit. Certainly many audience members will side with Peggy on this one, and the crowd with whom I watched the movie tonight did for the most part seem to get her exasperation.

I would like to say that Mike White has made a film that will help all non-vegans understand vegans, much less animal rights activists, and that would inspire people to go vegan, but I can't say that this is such a film. While veganism and animal protection are very much the fabric of Year of the Dog, White never seemed to find a way to put the audience in Peggy's shoes. We certainly see her progression from distraught pet owner to animal testing protester but, at the end of the day, she's still an outsider.

So I don't know if I would recommend this to friends or family, necessarily. Thinking about my own friends and family, I don't see this being a portrayal of transformation that I'm entirely comfortable sharing with them. The film doesn't adequately explain to them who I've become and what I'm about, and could well send the wrong message, honestly.

I state this despite a moving scene at the end of the film that does seem to capture the essence of a life transformed. As Peggy rides the bus to the rabbit testing demonstration, surrounded by kind and warm-looking activists, she shares in voiceover the contents of a mass email to all her friends, colleagues and family. She acknowledges that she has transformed into someone she knows they may not understand--may even think is crazy--but who has never felt more comfortable with who she is. It's a fine sentiment--and I related to it so powerfully that I was moved to tears--but I have to wonder whether the general public will have a similar response. Perhaps we can be optimistic and hope that, like Peggy's boss, they may find themselves mysteriously touched, not as transformed as Peggy, but pushed ever-so-slightly toward a more animal-friendly life.

I am very interested to know what kind of impact this movie does have on non-vegans and non-animal advocates. Hopefully I'm wrong about some of my assessments. Please share any experiences you have with the film and any friends and/or family of yours that see the film if it plays in your area, or when it comes out on video or cable. Maybe this is one of those movies that will do more than simply entertain.

Labels: movies, reviews

Who's planning to see this thing? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. For those that don't speak "icon," that's the little do-hickey in the footer that looks like a bubble quote.

Labels: hunting, movies

StatesmanJournal.com | Entertainment: 'Barnyard' a very funny farm film

I have to say that I've been dreading the arrival of Paramount/Nickelodeon's Barnyard: The Original Party Animals, from its misrepresentation of modern farmed animal life, to its bovine gender confusion: Your standard black and white Holsteins are presented as male in the film, udders and all (as opposed to bulls without udders). It was really weird to watch that in the trailer (I guess I've already gotten used to talking animals after years of watching that).

Fortunately, this review dispatches with the latter problem immediately, though critic James Ward never takes on the latest film from Steve Oedekerk (writer of Bruce Almighty) for its portrayal of an old-fashioned farm instead of a modern facility, with its attendant intensive confinement. I mean, he even "blesses" the farmer himself for being vegan... Excuse me? While his veganism would explain the lack of intensive confinement, why would a vegan even have all those farm animals? Is it a sanctuary? I don't think so.

The, of course, makes the farmer a Good Guy. A vegan. Somehow that's less realistic to me than animals speaking English. Maybe I'm just missing something here, but this also positions the bad guy to be a band of vicious coyotes instead of the farmers that treat billions of animals like commodities every year, which sends all kinds of lousy messages to kids. For instance, that domesticated animals like to be cooped up on farms, because it protects them from nature, and they have this gentle old, vegan farmer to take care of them. What?

Despite the movie giving time to vegetarianism and veganism (the animals argue the difference between the two), I'm fairly unhappy with what I'm discovering about this movie. Would have been nice if they consulted with ACE or something, so they could have learned a few basic things first. Like the fact that male cows don't have udders...

Labels: movies

TimesDispatch.com

This review doesn't give you a sense at all of how a supporting character, vegan animal rights activist Beth (played by Sarah Bush, comes off in the movie. Here's hoping that casting a vegan activist as pretty in a movie about pretty people means that she'll be treated favorably (hey, it's all I have to go on right now). By any chance, does anyone know if the SC graduate is veg?

I most likely won't get around to this one in theaters, so if you see it, please share with us what you find out.

Labels: movies