To mark World Animal Day on 4 October we will be releasing a new short film calling on the public to “be part of the solution” to animal suffering by supporting our work.
The film uses tracks by Moby and Snow Patrol as backing to footage and stills showing IAR’s rescue teams coming to the aid of animals in distress.
Created by volunteer Emma Fiorentini, the video illustrates the highs and lows of our work helping animals. A haunting track by Moby accompanies images of orangutans and other primates in captivity, as well as bears being forced to dance on the streets of India and a slow loris in a pet market in Indonesia having its teeth clipped. A tiny kitten is shown looking sickly and frail and a small puppy shivers pitifully at the bottom of a well.
But then comes relief from the sadness and despair. The viewer is told that “International Animal Rescue is working to become the solution to this suffering” and “You too can be part of the solution.” IAR Chief Executive Alan Knight’s promise to a dancing bear that “we’ll get you out of here!” launches the second part of the video and the mood now is upbeat. A series of clips to the backing of Snow Patrol’s “Chocolate” follows IAR’s teams in action, heroically carrying orangutans away from the devastated forests of Borneo, releasing a bear back into the woods and painstakingly rebuilding the broken teeth of a slow loris so that it can be returned to the wild.
One extraordinary clip features Pelangsi, the wild orangutan whose arm had to be amputated after he was caught in a snare. He is shown during his recovery being supported by the medical team and fed from a spoon by Project Director Karmele Llano Sanchez. She subsequently described as “incredible” the fact that a wild orangutan would tolerate people in such close proximity to him and allow himself to be fed in this way. “It must have been his survival instinct that made him accept it,” she said.
Alan Knight said: “Every time I watch this short film I feel immensely proud of the work we do and the way we do it. The dedication, determination and compassion of our teams shine through. It’s a real bonus to have the tracks by Moby and Snow Patrol to accompany the footage and I think both pieces of music reflect the mood of the film perfectly.
“We hope that by launching the video on World Animal Day we can draw maximum attention to it and generate lots of new support for our work. Countless suffering animals around the world are in desperate need of help and some might say that the problem is insurmountable. But our film shows that we can provide a solution and make a real difference. Nothing is more uplifting than knowing you have saved the life of a suffering animal and changed its life for the better. And the more people who support our efforts, the more animals we can save. It’s that simple.”