Slaughter-themed piece wins a film award

In recent years, we have been making films for the general public based on footage of animal farms sent to ARCJ and our investigation activities. This is an attempt to have many people become aware of and think about the issues of animal agriculture.

At the “Labor Festa” held on December 25, 2021, the screened “Please give me water, or light” won the Jury Prize. In addition, this work won first place in the participant questionnaire announced at a later date, and it is the first time that the animal-themed work won the award and attracted the attention of the audience at a film event dealing with many hard-line social issues*.

In a TV feature on cage-free at the end of last year, the ARC representative evaluated 2021 as the “first year of animal welfare”. As this phrase says, this award is an event that makes us feel that people’s interest is beginning to turn to the way farmed animals are treated.

Just because farmed animals are food and will be killed after all, it doesn’t mean people think they can be handled in whatever ways.. In fact, most people who watched this work say they didn’t know that farmed animals were treated this way, and that the animals they eat should also be taken good care of.

It’s time for us all to become aware. In particular, creators in various fields are gaining the courage to not run away but face the human activity of killing and eating farmed animals, and are beginning to play that role. Even in the world of art and culture, the time has finally come when values are expanding from human rights to the environment, and to animal welfare.

It seems that the cold weather is severe nationwide this winter. In no one’s minds should there be animals being abandoned at slaughterhouses, suffering from hunger and cold and waiting for death. If we give up, thinking that they’ll be killed even if improvements are made, that’d be the end of it. Especially because their lives are so limited, let’s make efforts to reduce the pains of farmed animals as much as possible this year.

About “overnight abandonment” at slaughterhouses, the newest information here.

* 2019 “DON’T LEAVE ME” won the Guest Jury (“Tokyo Tidal Flat” Hiroyasu Murakami) Award at the same film event.