Film Projection: “Man’s Best Friend” -& Discussion on Animal rights
Considering the 4th of October (World Animal Day), 5th of October (International Action Day for Stray Dogs) and recent events in Romania, we’d like to invite you to the screening of “Man’s Best Friend” film, followed by a discussion.
‘Man’s Best Friend’ is a raw and vivid investigation into the love-hate relationship between Romanians and strays, using expert interviews, secret footage and graphic images of dog capture and abuse.
Objective and non-intrusive, this Romanian-British documentary reveals how the stray dog crisis is a symptom of a new EU nation’s struggle to find an identity two decades after its brutal Communist dictatorship.
http://mansbestfriend.ro/
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More on the situation of stray/homeless dogs in Romania:
In September 2013, a 4-year old boy who ventured too far away from his grandma was supposedly mauled to death by some dogs on the terrain of an abandoned factory. Along the euphoria of tens of thousands of people going out in the streets against the Rosia Montana gold mining project, what followed was mass panic in the media and mass mobilization against all stray/homeless dogs of Bucharest and other big cities of Romania. Random killings of homeless dogs are still undergone by some people through rudimentary methods, while most local authorities have hired dog-catching companies to “clean” the streets. Shelters, which look more like prisons considering the poor conditions, have become in just a few days overpopulated. Last week, the Parliament has deemed constitutional a new law allowing “euthanasia” (actually brutal killings) of all homeless animals who have been caught but not adopted within 14 days – hence the overnight flourishing of a new dog-catching dog-killing industry.
Beyond all of these events lies the concept that non-human animals belong to human animals, they are ours to be used and disposed of as we wish.
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– the entrance is, of course and as always, free.