Apparently, the Toronto film festival is planning on showing a documentary movie showing footage from a video that three sadistic youths took of themselves as they skinned a cat while it was alive.
Here is the story from the Toronto Star: http://tinyurl.com/6nlsm
I urge all rational, compassionate people to contact the festival organizers and express how outraged you are about this tasteless decision to screen this film. The organizers may be contacted at the following e-mail address: tiffg@torfilmfest.ca
-Ray.
Originally posted by rgoudieMaybe it is educational. There is more than one way to skin a cat.
Apparently, the Toronto film festival is planning on showing a documentary movie showing footage from a video that three sadistic youths took of themselves as they skinned a cat while it was alive.
Here is the story from the Toronto Star: http://tinyurl.com/6nlsm
I urge all rational, compassionate people to contact the festival organizers and express ...[text shortened]... he organizers may be contacted at the following e-mail address: tiffg@torfilmfest.ca
-Ray.
Are you blaming the Director/producer, or the festival for showing this?
I guess that I would not see this movie myself because I like to sleep at night. Why would anyone want to watch it? Why do people watch faces of death?
Mike
Direct quote from the article:
"...people tell me I should also see Casuistry: The Art Of Killing A Cat, scheduled as part of the Toronto International Film Festival, before making a judgment.
No, I don't need to. I can make a judgment. I am willing to make a judgment right now and stand by it.
The movie is sick, and I hope no one goes to see it."
I'm glad this so-called reporter has such an enlightened and informed view on the subject. The article says nothing, because the writer knows nothing. Obviously, the people who organized the film festival have seen the film, and are therefore in a better position to gauge its appropriateness than, say, somebody who hasn't seen the film.
Originally posted by rgoudieWhat is the documentary about ?
I am outraged that the festival would consider the movie as something with any sort of merit.
Who would anyone wish to watch such stuff, you ask? Good question!
I would add the following question: Why would anyone wish to show such stuff.
-Ray.
How to skin a cat ? Probably not ! Sadistic children ? Maby.
Will sadistic children stop being cruel to animals if the movie is not shown ? Probably not ! Could raising awareness help with the problem ? Maby.
That may be the reason that someone would show it. But what do I know.
And here is the article...I had to wait five mintues for it to load, so people who are slower than me, here it is!
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Festival should pull plug on cat-killing movie
RONDI ADAMSON
Twice this year I have gone to movies I didn't particularly want to see, because, as a journalist, I figured I may want to write about them. In both cases, Mel Gibson's Passion Of The Christ and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9-11, I did end up writing about them. In both cases I hated the movies.
Similarly, people tell me I should also see Casuistry: The Art Of Killing A Cat, scheduled as part of the Toronto International Film Festival, before making a judgment.
No, I don't need to. I can make a judgment. I am willing to make a judgment right now and stand by it.
The movie is sick, and I hope no one goes to see it.
Better yet, I hope the people at the film festival will come to their senses and consider pulling it out of their lineup before the festival begins.
The movie, a 90-minute documentary, examines the videotaped skinning alive of a stray cat at the hands of Jesse Power, Anthony Wennekers and Matt Kaczorowski in Toronto in 2001 (for which our justice system delivered some stern slaps on the wrist).
Several justifications have been made for the videotaped torture. One was that it was some form of art.
Another was that it was a deep commentary on society's cruelty toward animals.
Apparently, it was actually a pro-kindness to animals video.
Imagine being asked to believe that Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka were actually making a statement about the wrongs of child rape and murder with their videos.
A particularly preposterous argument I have heard this week, trying to justify both the original torture, and Casuistry: The Art Of Killing A Cat, is that animals are brutalized in slaughterhouses, too.
Even slaughterhouses have standards. And while I'm willing to believe some don't respect those standards, the standards exist.
Animals that are killed for food are killed as humanely as possible, not slowly tortured to death by three young men who smirk about it afterwards and become stars of a movie three years later.
And as 5-year-olds know, two wrongs do not make a right.
A film festival programmer, speaking of the decision to schedule Casuistry: The Art Of Killing A Cat, said "that's what the festival is all about, setting the terms for debate, not stifling them." The makers of the movie say they want to give a "balanced view."
Debate? A balanced view? Of gratuitous cruelty? Of torture?
Of taking pleasure out of the suffering of a living creature?
I guess, being blonde and all, I'm too simple-minded to get how there could be any matter to debate here. The only balanced view is that the torture of that cat was a psychotic act.
Many of the news reports concerning both the original video and this documentary have focused on "animal-rights activists." Or "cat lovers."
I do not think one needs to be either to be utterly outraged and disgusted by the original "incident" as some have politely termed it, and by the justifications behind the making of this movie.
You need simply to be normal.
No one is suggesting animals should vote, or buy real estate, but that they are living creatures who feel fear and pain just as we do.
If it makes a person flaky to know this, then I guess Albert Einstein, Gandhi and George Bernard Shaw all carried the "flaky" mantle well. This is not to mention the overwhelming evidence indicating that those who torture animals will eventually do the same to a human.
The documentary itself will apparently show us how sorry Power, Wennekers and Kaczorowski are for their actions.
"They really do regret the whole thing," one of the movie's producers has said. "They're not trying to glorify themselves."
I'm so happy to hear that.
If they are sorry, and not interested in self-glorification or attention, perhaps they can donate money to animal shelters (provided they stay kilometres and kilometres away from the animal shelters) in between the hours and hours of therapy I hope they are getting.
In the meantime, I suggest no one see this movie, or calibrate in order to excuse it, or give any support to the sickos behind the real story.
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I am sorry to hear this also...but if so much controversy surrounds a movie, people want to see it, to make their own opinion...that is why Michael Moore's films are so popular, not because they are good...same as Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill...so much controversy, so many outraged people...Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson...think about it.
I urge all rational, compassionate people to contact the festival organizers and express how outraged you are about this tasteless decision to screen this film. The organizers may be contacted at the following e-mail address: tiffg@torfilmfest.caI know nothing about this movie. Except of course that there is coverage of a cat getting skinned in it.... which is sick.
But to say it should be banned by rational people is going a bit far. It might be the most profound examination of our culture ever written. Have u thought about that?
The people who made the movie might be trying to figure out why this phenomen is quite prevalent these days, and where this urge to inflict cruelty on other beings comes from?
Two scientists conducted experiments on people back in the sixtys, in which they showed them pictures of everyday things. One of the pictures had an uncovered female breast taking up half the photo, with a guy reading a newspaper on a park bench in the background. When questioned, over 60% of the people didn't even see the breast but could tell what coloured shirt the man in the background was wearing. Because in the sixtys people weren't as liberal as they are now, they made a conscious decision not to acknowledge that they'd seen the breast and then were able to forget that they had even seen the breast to make that decision. This is a great example of see no evil, hear no evil
By banning all types of movies/documentaries which show humans acting in outrageous fashion (ie: skinning of a cat), then nobody would be seeing these acts and we would be able to forget that our race is capable and indeed perpetrating these acts on a regular basis. Obviously we'd all be a lot happier in the knowledge that cats weren't being skinned and that cat skinning was only an urban legen thought up to frighten kids into looking after their pets.
I'll put it another way... Should all video footage/photos of jews in concentration camps or being led into the gas chambers be destroyed?
my two cents...
D
For an even more shocking and inhumane film at the Toronto Film Festival how about Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate which according to the synposis on the festival's website argues that "It may be time to see the film for the beautifully detailed work of art it is." Anyone who's had the extreme misfortune to actually see Heaven's Gate (thankfully very few) would rather have themselves skinned alive than to be exposed to that pretentious piece of trash again! Oh, the humanity!!!
Originally posted by donallyneNobody said anything about destruction. Are you saying that said footage would be good fare for an international film festival?
I'll put it another way... Should all video footage/photos of jews in concentration camps or being led into the gas chambers be destroyed?
-Ray.
Originally posted by rgoudieI was under the impression that Schindlers List was shown at some international film festivals and also won 7 Academy awards.
Nobody said anything about destruction. Are you saying that said footage would be good fare for an international film festival?
-Ray.
The Grey Zone is one of the most haunting, harrowing movies I've ever seen, but I'm glad I was able to watch it, cos it gave the most realistic portrayal of what life was really like in the concentration camps. It was brutal and it was disturbing, but highly moving. It also got an award for Special Recognition for Films Celebrating Freedom of Expression! Was it tasteless of the movie makers to make this movie which portrays human suffering so graphicly? Or should we be reminded of the suffering the jews had to endure during that period, so that we never forget.
We mustn't lose sight of the fact that all movie makers aren't in it for the same reason: money. I could spend my life watching hollywood teenage flicks which follow the formula: kinda happy, sad, very happy, very, very sad, ecstatic, hero comes out on top. But what would I learn, how would my emotions be stirred?
Last night, before my original post, I watched Songs of a Raggy Boy which is based on a true story set in a catholic reform school in Ireland in the 30's. Without spoiling the movie, in parts its an account of the brutalities suffered by children at the hands of Catholic priests at the time including molestations and beatings. Now this is viewing that I found deeply disturbing, largely in part because I know people who went through the system and must have suffered accordingly. I was disturbed, I didn't enjoy the content in a light hearted manner, but the movie was such an excellent exploration of the subject matter that I was highly entertained. There were parts of the movie where the hair on the back of my neck was standing due to the horrific nature of the scenes, but these things happened and I don't think we should just sit back and watch 'She's all That' until we can forget about the atrocities of our time.
Now before people start to think that I'm some kind of masochist and only watch movies that make me feel bad, I enjoy a light hearted movie as much as the rest of you, but I don't think this should be my sole intake of viewing material, and I glad that people like Spielberg, Tim Blake Nelson and Aisling Walsh are brave enough to make these types of movies where they risk being branded tasteless, irrational and uncompassionate.
D
What is the exact content of the film in question? Besides the videotaped parts that show the torture of the cats?
I'm a big movie/film fan and it's impossible to make a judgement of a film based on one part of it.
I've seen many documentaries that feature uncomfortable images and subject matter, that does not automatically mean they should not be viewed or should be pulled from international competition.
Many people say "The Passion of the Christ" is the most graphic display of violence they have seen on film, should this movie also be pulled from film festivals?
Edit: To clarify, I love animals. I support animal rights.