Really well done documentary IMO. Well done! My hunch is that this could succeed, as intended, at opening up conversations with friends and family in a way that some of the other docos might not. Curious to see the numbers and anecdotes when they come in.Ā
Thank you :)Ā
Congratulations, Jack! I'm looking forward to watching it!
Thanks Grace! Would love to hear what you think :)Ā
I just watched it and have a lot of tears after the beautiful heart-felt ending! I have family who've also worked in slaughterhouses and animal farming, and I think you brought this together in a way that feels compassionate. I think it's a really well done film! Congratulations!
Really looking forward to watching this beyond the trailer. Impressive work!Ā
I finally got around to watching this. It was very well produced. I started crying at the end when the writer was reading about why she wrote her book. I'm really glad you made this. Thank you.
I really respect how seriously youāve taken this process! I was grateful to be a test-viewer a year or so ago alongside some gen pop folks from Meetups.com. The doco was in a great spot then and itās even better now after incorporating all the feedback youāve solicited. Well done. I hope youāre very proud!
I donāt usually watch vegan documentaries anymore because they make me really sad, but Iām glad I made an exception here. I think the question of how human relationships work when people end up on opposite sides of a moral divide is really important, and you told such a compelling story.
I think this documentary is different because itās aimed at people who already believe that animal exploitation is wrong and it explores how to live and engage with the world while knowing this reality which is somethimg a lot of people who went vegan at some point had to contend with.Ā
Wow. I can just tell how difficult it was to face this head on with your dad, how much easier it was for you to converse with others, and how challenging it was to dig into this with him.
Iām the mom of two very young kids and more often than not Iām reading books about farm and wild animals to our kids. At library time, we read these sort of things just as much as we do the ABCs. Often I look around the room and think, all these kids will likely eat these animals some dayā¦and they have no idea how much they suffer. I wonder if your dad lived across those two worlds. Reading sweet books about animals and asking you what sounds they made, all the while showing up for work the next day. Itās incredible how we can partition these ideas, especially when it comes to raising kids. Ā
Iām an EA who has been trying to find ways to make animal suffering more salient. Iāve been working on a feature-length documentary called āThe Dying Tradeā for the last 5 years and Iāve just released it on YouTube.Ā
Iām sharing it here for two reasons: firstly, because I hope it can become a useful resource that advocates share with others as an introduction to animal ethics; and secondly, because strong engagement in the early days will help YouTube recommend the film to more people, increasing its impact.
Trailer:Ā
Full film:Ā
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About the film
Jack is a vegan activist. His father is a slaughterhouse worker. After years of avoiding the subject, Jack sets out to confront the unspoken tension between them. This intimate and contemplative documentary follows a sonās attempt to understand his father - and the industry that stands between them.
I didnātĀ really want to make a documentary about my relationship with my father. At times, it was quite uncomfortable.Ā
For the last 8 years or so, Iāve been trying to increase the salience of animal suffering, primarily through producing videos on my YouTube channel: Humane Hancock. And one thing has always been clear: Itās hard to get people to pay attention to the suffering of animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses.Ā
In some sense, having a father who works in a slaughterhouse gave me a unique opportunity to approach the issue from a different angle - something that might seem more appealing to people than standard explorations into factory farming.Ā
My goal with this film has been to make something that promotes concern for animals in a way that is engaging / interesting while avoiding triggering defensiveness as much as possible - I think there were tradeoffs here and Iām sure others would have made different decisions at times. This is my first film, and when I began I had very little idea what I was doing - including whether my dad would ever agree to participate at all.Ā
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Some thoughts on effectiveness
I think Iāve had a sense that documentaries have been influential in promoting concern for animals. Anecdotally, many advocates Iāve spoken to, both within and outside of EA, have described having their ājourneyā into the movement triggered by documentaries, and this has also been reflected in some surveys. Most of the documentaries people cite have had mainstream distribution, with Earthlings being a notable exception - which seemed to gain popularity by word of mouth.
Intuitively, films seem capable of creating a kind of emotional engagement that can make people more open to reflection and attitude change in ways that straightforward argument sometimes cannot.
At the same time, I think this kind of work is frustratingly difficult to evaluate rigorously. View counts and audience reactions are imperfect proxies for impact, but they may be the best available indicators for projects like this.
After spending so many years on this project, I might take a breather before committing to another large project. But Iām interested in communicating ideas around wild animal suffering to broader audiences, and Iād be very interested to speak with others interested in that space.
Very brave to tackle this and feels like a very modern human side of veganism <3. I like how you talked about PTSD. As far as I know slaughter house workers also experience very high rates of injury and workplace death too as you are killing animals which is dangerous to us as animals too!!!