FW: [HelptheAnimals] Please Act: Toronto Film Festival Promoting Cat Torture

[Guest guest]

 

 

BoldChapeau

[boldchapeau]

Monday, August 30, 2004 6:29 PM

Annie

[HelptheAnimals] Please

Act: Toronto Film

Festival Promoting Cat Torture

 

[Chickadee-L] Toronto Film Festival

promoting cat torture

Mon, 30 Aug 2004 17:27:41 -0400

<MaryFinelli

 

 

 

Forwarded message:

PLEASE CROSS-POST TO ALL LISTS-

This is an URGENT request to boycott and/or write

the Toronto Film

Festival unless they remove " Casuistry: The

Art of Killing a Cat " from

their " REAL TO REEL " program. This is a

film that, by its simple

existence, glorifies that atrocities

committed by three youths in 2001

when they videotaped the skinning alive of a

domestic cat and called it

art. Several of the police who watched the

videotapes had to stop

watching, some of them cried. (And cops see a LOT of horrific stuff!!)

The three youths were all given slaps on the wrist

(thanks to our

shameful lack of animal welfare laws in Canada) and are are now out

on

the street today... sick minds capable of further

atrocities.

Before reading the following article that appears

in today's Toronto

SUN,

PLEASE NOTE the following contact numbers and

faxes. Pls let them know

how disgusted you are and, if you were planning to

go,

please tell them you are boycotting the festival

if this film is not

pulled. THANK YOU for the animals!!!

Contact:

Lynnette Gryseels (in the Press Office) at:

lgryseels <lgryseels

Also, PLEASE FAX the press office at:

1-416-581-0214.

(You can address your faxes to: Michele Maheux,

Managing Director,

Toronto Film Festival)

or CALL: 1-416-934-3200

----------

Monday, August 30, 2004

COLUMNIST

Sat, August 28, 2004

It gets even loopier

By MIKE STROBEL -- For the Toronto Sun

Casuistry: (1) The act of deciding questions of

right from wrong. (2)

Clever but false reasoning.

And here we thought the Kensington cat snuff film

was evil, pure and

simple.

That we were right to revile the three goofs who

made it and be repulsed

by their work.

That nothing, nothing, could justify it.

Now along comes Casuistry: The Art of Killing a

Cat.

It premieres at the Toronto Film Festival Sept.

14.

The producer gave me a tape, since I wrote about

the case.

You need not be a cat-lover to remember: Jesse

Power, Anthony Wennekers

and Matt Kaczorowski, all 20-ish, made a snuff

film one Friday night in

2001.

For 17 minutes, they tormented, tortured, and oh,

so, slowly, killed a

gentle, striped female cat in a Kensington house.

The unlucky pet was later found skinned in a beer

fridge.

It was art, said Jesse Power, the lead goof.

A few of Toronto's loopier artistes

defended them, but hardly anyone

else did. I mean, this was the Bernardo/Homolka of

animal cruelty cases.

Now, at last, the Three Stooges have their say.

Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat is produced by

Linda Feesey and

directed by Zev Asher. She made Sex and Cerebral

Palsy. He made What

About Me: The Rise of the Nihilist Spasm Band.

They are not Disney.

To set the mood, they open Casuistry with scenes

from a 1980

" performance art " flick, in which two

cats are disembowelled and worn as

hats.

Istvan Kantor filmed that gem. He has since won a

Governor General's

Award.

But Jesse Power is the star of Casuistry.

(It's his special word, right before

" cat " in the dictionary.)

He's even the soundtrack, yowling his Anti-Meat

Eating Song.

He speaks first in shadow, then, as he warms to

the topic, in full view.

His bangs dangle sexily. His eyes toy with the

camera. " Man, am I

charismatic, " they say. " And

misunderstood. "

And a whiner.

The cops " went all righteous on me. "

Or, " I never got to eat the cat, but a lot of

other people are feasting

off of this cat. "

Or, things got gory because he and his pals were

" disorganized " and one

of them gave him a dull razor. Plus they were dozy

on drugs.

And, anyway, " everything takes a long time to

die, no matter what it

is. " He got 90 days, on weekends.

He blames the papers, and society, and the young

woman who called the

cops (in hopes of a reward, says our Jesse).

Pal Wennekers even manages to blame cats,

" just a smarter version of

rats, an artifact of human culture. "

Sometimes, bull-fights or squealing swine flash

across Casuistry.

Remember, Power's " art video " was to

show the " hypocrisy " of pets in a

world of abattoirs.

And, step right up, see Jesse Power chop off a

runt chicken's head. See

him cuddle a rotting pig, play puppet with a baby

orangutan's corpse.

There is none of the Kensington tape. The

filmmakers couldn't get their

hands on it.

They also couldn't find any backers, even in

usually fertile arts

councils and grant offices. Total budget was, oh,

$500.

Apologists were a dime a dozen, though.

A friend of Matt's tells us how the guy is a

talented writer and once

asked for a teddy bear.

" Artists " say things like: " Young

men, as they're growing up and

learning how things work, they always kill

something. It's part of

growing and developing as a young person. "

Det. John Margetson, the humane society and the

like, bring some balance

and sense, thank goodness.

" I cannot condone, or condemn, what (Power

and Co.) did, " says Zev

Asher, down the line from Montreal.

" I think it was a misguided adventure, that

they were inebriated and did

something sick and stupid.

" I think Jesse is an artist. I don't think

this was art at all, though I

understand what he was trying to do. "

I dunno. You should see those 17 minutes, Mr.

Asher.

I have. So when Jesse Power smirks that maybe

he'll be " torn apart by a

cougar " when he goes camping ...

..... it's hard not to root for the cougar.

 

" Until we have the courage to

recognize cruelty for what it is --

whether its victim is human or animal --we cannot

expect things to be

much better in this world.. We cannot have peace

among men whose hearts

delight in killing any living creature. By

every act that glorifies or

even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we

set back the progress

of humanity. "

Rachel Carson

 

 

 

" A

single voice may not be heard, but the voices of many

cannot be ignored. " ~ Author Unknown