What’s ‘Mine’ is Yours?: Film Movement Grabs Animals as Property Docu

When it comes to the individual rights of animals, in the eyes of the law, we are still at the cro-magnon stages as we do next to nothing to protect their interests. As they are still regarded as property/objects, there was a really sticky issue that came about from all the pet saving measures that were taken after Katrina hit. New homes were found for displaced pooches, felines and god knows what else us humans keep imprisoned in our homes and what followed, is the basis for what may be a pertinent docu film.

Film Movement have picked up from Geralyn Pezanoski’s Mine – the winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at SXSW, a docu that examines how we treat animals as an extension of how we view and treat each other. This should receive a quick theatrical release perhaps as early as 2009.

Pezanoski’s doc explores how tragedy intensifies that bond and is told from the perspective of original guardians, rescuers, and adoptive parents of the voiceless victims of Katrina. These individuals are all connected by two things, the tragic aftermath of Katrina and their love of animals.

In response to an unprecedented crisis, thousands of pets needed to be transported around the country and adopted even when their displaced guardians still desperately wanted them. Meanwhile, many adoptive guardians have forged strong bonds with their new pets, nurturing them back to health from the traumas they suffered during and after the storm.

When two families love the same pet, conflicts inevitably arise over who is the rightful “owner” and what is right for the animal. At the center of this tension are pets who are loved like family, but by law are considered property. This begs the question, who is looking out for the best interest of the animals? Set in a post-Katrina landscape of poverty, loss and moral uncertainty, MINE presents the complexity of an intensely emotional situation that has no simple answers.