Shelter DOCS: All About Animals!

Quarantine: Day …

Hoping that everyone is well. We already miss spending time with our wonderful community and have some really fun ideas about how to make sure we all stay connected.

The Biggest Little Farm

The Biggest Little Farm chronicles the eight-year quest of John and Molly Chester as they trade city living for 200 acres of barren farmland and a dream to harvest in harmony with nature. Through dogged perseverance and embracing the opportunity provided by nature’s conflicts, the Chester’s unlock and uncover a biodiverse design for living that exists far beyond their farm, its seasons, and our wildest imagination.

Featuring breathtaking cinematography, captivating animals, and an urgent message to heed Mother Nature’s call, The Biggest Little Farm provides us all a vital blueprint for better living and a healthier planet.

Running time: 91 minutes
Director: John Chester
Available on: YouTube – Amazon Prime – Google Play – hulu

BUCK

“Your horse is a mirror to your soul, and sometimes you may not like what you see. Sometimes, you will.” So says Buck Brannaman, a true American cowboy and sage on horseback who travels the country for nine grueling months a year helping horses with people problems. BUCK, a richly textured and visually stunning film, follows Brannaman from his abusive childhood to his phenomenally successful approach to horses. A real-life “horse-whisperer”, he eschews the violence of his upbringing and teaches people to communicate with their horses through leadership and sensitivity, not punishment. Buck possesses near magical abilities as he dramatically transforms horses – and people – with his understanding, compassion and respect. In this film, the animal-human relationship becomes a metaphor for facing the daily challenges of life. A truly American story about an unsung hero, BUCK is about an ordinary man who has made an extraordinary life despite tremendous odds.

Running time: 88 minutes
Director: Cindy Meehl
Available on: YouTube – Amazon Prime – Google Play – iTunes

The Champions

The Champions is an inspirational story about the pittbulls rescued from the brutal fighting ring of Atlanta Falcon’s star quarterback Michael Vick, and those who risked it all to save them, despite pressure from PETA and The Humane Society of the United States to euthanize the dogs. It is a story of second-chances, redemption and hope. This uplifting documentary takes us on a journey about much more than just dogs—about prejudice, being misunderstood, the power of resilience, and the significance of the relationship we as humans have with animals.

Running time: 90 minutes
Director: Darcy Dennett
Available on: YouTube – Amazon Prime – Google Play – iTunes

Dark Horse

Set within the working class confines of the United Kingdom, Dark Horse chronicles the true and inspirational story of a group of friends who decide to breed their own championship racehorse. A true David versus Goliath story, Dark Horse follows their trials and tribulations challenging the sport’s elite. Heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time, Dark Horse will leave you cheering until the end.

Running time: 85 minutes
Director: Louise Osmond
Available on:  YouTube – Amazon Prime – Google Play – iTunes

The Dog Doc

A founding father of integrative veterinary medicine, Dr. Marty Goldstein and his colleagues in South Salem, NY have created a mecca for holistic care, offering hope to scores of previously hopeless animals (and their owners). Combining conventional medical training with cutting edge alternative therapies, Dr. Marty’s deeply empathetic philosophy offers a vital example of how improving overall health rather than merely treating disease is transformative for all living things. As Goldstein and his staff interact with animals, the stakes are high and it is often touch and go as we watch the owners, some who have traveled great distances, struggle with the reality of whether or not their pets will live to see another day.

Running time: 101  minutes
Director: Cindy Meehl
Available on:  Amazon Prime (for rent or purchase)

Emptying The Skies

Based on a magazine essay written by noted best-­selling novelist Jonathan Franzen for The New Yorker and widely republished around the world, Emptying the Skies chronicles the rampant poaching of migratory songbirds in southern Europe. Songbird populations have been drastically declining for several decades, and a number of species face extinction imminently. The film explores the wonder of these tiny globe-­flying marvels, millions of which are unlawfully slaughtered each year for large sums on the black market, and follows an intrepid squad of pan-­European bird-­lovers who risk their lives waging a secret war against poachers, disrupting illegal trapping and freeing as many birds as possible.

Running time: 78 minutes
Director: Douglass Kass +Roger Kass
Available on: YouTube – Amazon Prime – Google Play – iTunes

Harry and Snowman

Dutch immigrant, Harry deLeyer, journeyed to the United States after World War II and developed a transformative relationship with a broken down Amish plow horse he rescued off a slaughter truck bound for the glue factory. Harry paid eighty dollars for the horse and named him Snowman. In less than two years, Harry & Snowman went on to win the triple crown of show jumping, beating the nations blue bloods and they became famous and traveled around the world together. Their chance meeting at a Pennsylvania horse auction saved them both and crafted a friendship that lasted a lifetime. Eighty-six year old Harry tells their Cinderella love story firsthand, as he continues to train on today’s show jumping circuit.

Running time: 84 minutes
Director: Ron Davis
Available on: Amazon Prime – YouTube – Google Play – iTunes

Jane

Oscar®- and Emmy®-nominated director Brett Morgen uses a trove of never-before-seen 16 mm footage unearthed after 50 years from the National Geographic archives to shed fresh light on trailblazing conservationist Jane Goodall. Morgen, described by The Wall Street Journal as “the leading revolutionary of American documentary film,” tells Goodall’s story starting in 1960, when the 26-year-old British woman arrives in a remote area of northwestern Tanzania to study chimpanzees. Driven by her love of animals but lacking any formal training, Goodall triumphs in a male-dominated field, challenging conventional research methods with her unique approach to wildlife observation.

Running time: 90 minutes
Director: Brett Morgen
Available on: YouTube – Amazon Prime – Google Play – hulu – Disney+

Life In The Doghouse

As a child, Danny Robertshaw’s mom would take him to rescue shelters and explain, “You don’t buy a pet, you save one.” So, in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina’s surge broke through the levees in New Orleans and thousands of dogs were left stranded, Danny and his partner of nearly 30 years, Ron Danta, stepped up to save the lives of the abandoned dogs. The veteran horse trainers and animal lovers drove their horse trailer down and back from South Carolina to New Orleans bringing home 40-60 dogs per trip. Dedicating all of their own resources to the effort, including their own home, they eventually rescued and found homes for more than 600 dogs and Danny & Ron’s Rescue was founded.

Running time: 83 minutes
Director: Ron Davis
Available on: Amazon Prime – Google Play – Netflix – You Tube

Naledi

Naledi: A Baby Elephant’s Tale tells the incredible true story of a baby elephant born into a rescue camp in the Botswana wilderness. When she’s suddenly orphaned at one month, the keepers and scientist looking after the herd become tireless surrogate mothers. Camp scientist Mike Chase has launched the most ambitious census ever of African elephants across the continent; a last ditch effort to help them survive. Now, he must race to defend an entire species while struggling to save a single life.

Running time: 90 minutes
Director: Ben Bowie, Geoffrey Luck
Available on:  Netflix

Project Nim

From the Oscar-winning team behind MAN ON WIRE comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim’s extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. What we learn about his true nature – and indeed our own – is comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling.

Running time: 93 minutes
Director: James Marsh
Available on: YouTube – Amazon Prime – Google Play –  iTunes

Tiger Tiger

The tiger – Panthera tigris, is one of the largest and most powerful predators to stride our planet. In the usually dispassionate language of science, the tiger is anointed as a “charismatic species” – In other words, an animal possessed of both beauty and rare mystique. Yet while the tiger is celebrated in folk legends and mythologies throughout the world, its presence on earth is greatly threatened. Fewer than 3,200 tigers now survive in the wild, and extinction in our lifetime is a real possibility. Set in the Sundarbans, the mystical semi-aquatic belt of mangrove forest shared between India and Bangladesh, Tiger Tiger follows Dr. Alan Rabinowitz, one of the top big cat conservation biologists in the world, as he travels through the one tiger habitat he has never before seen. Schooled on the rough streets of the Bronx in his youth and afflicted with a potentially devastating speech impediment, Alan found salvation in his communication with and passion for animals. And like the tiger he faces his own diminishing timeline. Diagnosed with leukemia, Alan makes what may be the last expedition in his long career in search of the last wild tigers of the Sundarbans.

Running time: 90 minutes
Director: George Butler

Trophy

Endangered African species like elephants, rhinos and lions march closer to extinction each year. Their devastating decline is fueled in part by a global desire to consume these majestic animals. Trophy investigates the powerhouse industries of big-game hunting, breeding and wildlife conservation. Through the eyes of impassioned individuals who drive these industries – from a Texas-based trophy hunter to the world’s largest private rhino breeder in South Africa – the film grapples with the consequences of imposing economic value on animals. What are the implications of treating animals as commodities? Do breeding, farming and hunting offer some of the few remaining options to conserve our endangered animals? Trophy will leave you debating what is right, what is wrong and what is necessary in order to save the great species of the world.

Running time: 108 minutes
Director:  Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau
Available on: YouTube – Amazon Prime – Google Play – Netflix

Unbranded

Four young Cowboys hatch an outrageous plot to adopt, train, and ride a string of wild mustangs 3,000 miles from Mexico to Canada through the wildest terrain of the American West. The trip became an epic journey of self-discovery, tested friendships, and iconic landscapes that included runaway horses, a sassy donkey, perilous mountain passes, rodeos, sickness, injury, and death. The Audience Award winner at Telluride Mountainfilm and Hot Docs Film Festival, Unbranded is a soaring tale of danger and resilience, an emotionally charged odyssey that shines a bright light on the complex plight of our country’s wild horses.

Running time:  106 minutes
Director:  Phillip Baribeau
Available on: YouTube –  Amazon Prime – iTunes – hulu