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Agnieszka Holland's animal rights horror-thriller Spoor (2017) can be read as a revenge tale wherein women, non-hegemonic men and animals join forces against the hunters and, implicitly, against what they represent: the conservative worldview of the current nationalist government in Poland. Spoor offers a feminist, queer and ecological response to these values and, in the process, expands our comprehension of how ecocinema might look or feel. While narratively human-centred, the film uses several strategies to foster an aesthetic attunement to non-human beings and non-anthropocentric politics. However, Spoor also transcends ecocinema by putting itself in quotation marks. In its self-reflexive use of extreme genericity, Spoor exemplifies Nicole Seymour's observation that politically engaged cinema can sometimes fail to follow the available scripts for 'appropriate' environmental feeling. This paper argues that, by merging tenderness and despair with more distanced modes, including irony, humour and metageneric playfulness, Spoor departs from serious approaches prevalent in environmental filmmaking, questioning the authenticity and proximity central to the very concept of ecology. Spoor's aesthetic and affective complexity rests on blending fakery and feeling, which problematises existing ways of understanding how eco-films engage us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the changing status of the moral framing of animals in Western visual culture in the last four decades. The author proposes to revise John Berger's critique of the marginal way of seeing animals in modern museums and zoos. Both institutions presented animals as strangers to urban culture by keeping them isolated in showcases and cages. Mass media that disseminated wildlife documentaries kept on separating animals from human culture by picturing them as representatives of "wild" species. The paper brings attention to a decisive moment in the reframing of the public gaze, which occurred with the birth of two new visual genres. First, investigative documentaries and activist blogs allowed the human right to exploit animals to be criticized. Second, the rise of social networks allowed animals to be pictured as companions. The author argues that both genres caused an inclusive turn of public gaze that visually integrated animals into urban culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the use of nonhuman primate "actors"; (PAs) in promotional trailers for wide-release, English-language CARA-rated films released between 1990 and 2013. A comprehensive list of films featuring PAs was constructed using internet databases and snowball sampling. Changes in the frequency of their use over time were examined. Trailers for each of the films on the list were screened for inclusion of PA footage. Those including PAs were content-analyzed for a list of items including taxa/taxon used; presence or absence of bared-teeth display (BTD, often an expression of fear or submission in nonhuman primates); and presence of clothing, human companion, anthropogenic environment, and/or "human"; actions. No statistically significant increase or decrease in the frequency of PA use was detected over the time period examined, although comparison to an earlier study that included pre-1990 films suggests that the use of orangutans (Pongo spp.) has diminished in frequency. The present study found that the most commonly used taxa between 1990 and 2013 were chimpanzees (Pan spp.), capuchins (Cebus and Sapajus spp.), and Cercopithecines (Macaca and Papio spp.). PAs were shown "grinning"; (displaying BTDs) for 19% of the time they were onscreen; they were clothed 50% of the time; performing "human"; actions 58% of the time; alongside human companions 87% of the time and/or in anthropogenic environments 87% of the time. Apart from concern that the practice compromises the welfare of individual primates, there is some indication that the use of PAs may be indirectly harmful as well; results of several recent studies suggest that their presentation in certain contexts fosters false public understanding about the conservation status of primates and their suitability as human companions or pets. The low but steady frequency with which PAs were used and presented in various anthropocentric contexts suggests that, throughout the time period studied, the film industry remained either uninformed or unconcerned about the potential harmful effects that their choices could have on animal welfare and conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the results of an experiment to assess the quality of post-edited wildlife documentary films to be voiced-over and off-screen dubbed, which was compared to the quality of human translation. The hypothesis of the article is that there are no significant differences between translated and post-edited texts in terms of quality. Twelve MA students translated and post-edited two excerpts of an English wildlife documentary into Spanish. Six professional translators then assessed both the translations and post-edited texts by: (1) grading the documents, (2) correcting them using a Multidimensional Quality Metrics-based error classification that takes into account documentary translation specificities, and (3) answering questionnaires on their impressions. The results confirm the hypothesis by indicating that the quality of post-edited and translated wildlife documentary films is significantly similar. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Blackfish is a key entry into the “nature” documentary genre, highlighting the tension between sentimentalizing and fearing wildlife. While such tensions are usually contained within the “violent thrills” of most documentaries, Blackfish's conflicted attitude toward the captive orcas raises this tension in ways that the movie's emotional ending fails to alleviate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents criticism on the film "The Lobster" directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and starring Colin Farrell. Topics discussed include the theme of the film which is a love story between the protagonist David and his partner, a comparison between David and Narcissus in Greek mythology, and the portrayal of animals in the film.

The intention of this article is to investigate the visual presence of animals in contemporary literary and cinematic productions, specifically in the filmsLa ciénaga(2011) andLa mujer sin cabeza[The Headless Woman] (2008) by Lucrecia Martel,Verano[Summer] (2011) by José Luis Torres Leiva,Perro muerto[Dead Dog] (2011) by Camilo Becerra, and in Carlos Busqued's 2009 novelBajo este sol tremendo[Under this Terrible Sun]. Despite the fact that authors like John Berger and Akira Lippit have claimed that the animal tends to disappear in modernity, authors like Pick and Jonathan Burt have rescued a persistent animal presence in literary and flim productions as a positive element. Burt emphasises the visual agency of the animal not so much as subjectivity, but rather as an affective power facing the human observer, and Pick underlines the vulnerability of the animal on screen. In this article I show the importance of the animal-human figuration, the look between species and the mobility/immobility duality as axes around which the visual presence of animals is articulated in these contemporary Latin American cultural productions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Theoretical reflections on animals in film often invest in an ontological association between cinema and the animal. This article traces this ontological association (in the work of André Bazin and Akira Mizuta Lippit in particular) yet also asks how reflections on screen animals might move beyond this theoretical trope. Denis Côté’s Bestiaire (2012), an experimental documentary about a zoo, seems to affirm the idea that the on-screen animal reveals cinematic specificity. Including a sequence at a taxidermist, Bestiaire reflects on the display of animals both living and dead, still and moving; it mobilises two key metaphors – cinema as zoo, and cinema as taxidermy – in order to interrogate the ontology of film. Yet Bestiaire also moves beyond this theoretical conflation of cinema and animality. Drawing on work by Nicole Shukin and Anat Pick, this article reads the film’s strategies of framing and ‘witnessing’ as posing questions about zoo biopower, captivity and suffering. Invoking Jakob von Uexküll’s notion of the Umwelt, the author addresses Bestiaire’s attunement to nonhuman perceptual worlds. Initiating yet exceeding a reduction of the film animal to an expression of cinematic specificity,Bestiaire explores two different concepts of life: the ‘bare life’ of zoopolitics and the life-worlds that expand, and make meaning, beyond this. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Animal celebrity is a human creation informing us about our socially constructed natural world. It is relational, expressive of cultural proclivities, political power plays and the quotidian everyday, as well as serious philosophical reflections on the meaning of being human. This article attempts to outline some key contours in the genealogy of animal celebrity, showing how popular culture, including fairground attractions, public relations, Hollywood movies, documentary films, zoo attractions, commercial sport and mediatised moral panics – particularly those accompanying scientific developments such as cloning – help to order, categorise and license aspects of human understanding and feelings. The nature of [animal] charisma and celebrity are explored with assistance from Jumbo the Elephant, Guy the Gorilla, Paul the clairvoyant octopus, Uggie the film star, Nénette the orang-utan and Dolly the sheep. It argues that the issue of what it is to be human lies beneath the celebritised surface or, as Donna Haraway noted, the issue ‘of having to face oneself’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the films "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," directed by Rupert Wyatt and "Project Nim," directed by James Marsh.

Recent proliferation and popularity of personal computer and console games has meant that scholarship around video arcade games has been largely ignored. Arcade games had their halcyon days during the 1970s and 1980s when 'Space Invaders', 'Pong' and 'Donkey Kong' were household names. The inception of scholarship into games occurred in the 1990s; a time when arcade games were writ small in the cultural imagination, at least compared to the newer home computer and video games. Thus in games theory they are typically discussed only in terms of their role as antecedents to their more popular kin. Moreover, they seem innocuous because they are so publicly accessible. Against this assumption, and lack of scholarship, this paper explores a selection of contemporary arcade games which we describe as 'hunting' games. Arcade hunting games are first-person shooter (FPS) involving one or more players shooting simulated wild animals. They are commonly situated in cinema foyers, hotels, and family entertainment centres. However, despite a presumption of institutional moderation afforded by the public accessibility of these spaces, this paper argues that this genre works through a range of political modalities that require more scholarly consideration than currently given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By studying the diegesis and music of the film Lady and the Tramp, the authors describe a specific form of American social membership that continues to define social politics today. In the film, dogs, cats and rats represent human archetypes, their needs, desires and activities, and provide a narrative that secures an American ideal about the place of race and nation. The argument is put forth that this representation defines a politics of whiteness that not only uses the threat of formal exclusion and elimination from society to define ethnicity and race, but also seeks to eliminate the likelihood of a successful radicalization of the border. This is a nation where even the idea of difference is defeated and domestication is total. Against this narrative, the authors contend that the absence of an adequate description in the film of the class politics and racial practices that support this vision raises serious questions as to the social coherence of Disney's America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides information on the ARKive initiative which is currently changing the situation of motion picture preservation and is leading the virtual conservation effort in Great Britain, as of November 2004. Launched in May 2003, ARKive was the realization of a vision first conceived nearly 20 years ago, long before the technology was available to even attempt making such a project reality. ARKive is an initiative of Wildscreen, an educational charity which also organizes the biennial Wildscreen Festival, the largest and most prestigious wildlife and environmental film festival in the world, founded by Christopher Parsons and Peter Scott in 1982 to reward and encourage excellence in wildlife filmmaking and related media. Initial work on project design centered on the building of taxonomies and the idea of creating a species record. The information is arranged in two chapters. Chapter one is dedicated to British animals, plants and fungi--from the familiar to the rare and obscure. Chapter two, for globally endangered species, is only just beginning but currently covers 250 representative examples from the Red Lists of the World Conservation Union. Each portrait comprises video footage and stills photographs, backed by authenticated fact-files about the lifestyle, habitat, reproduction, survival strategies, threats of the life form and more.