About the film

With the exception of our companion animals and a few wild and stray species within our urban environments, we experience animals daily only as the food, clothing, animal tested goods and entertainment we make of them. This moral dilemma is often hidden from our view. Through the heart and photographic lens of international photographer Jo-Anne McArthur, we become intimately familiar with a cast of non-human animals. The film follows Jo-Anne over the course of a year as she photographs several animal stories in parts of Canada, the U.S. and in Europe. Each story is a window into global animal industries: Food, Fashion, Entertainment and Research. “The connection that I have to animals while I am photographing them is one of empathy. There is a huge mistreatment and inequality between human and non-human animals, and that is always in the forefront of my mind”.

The Ghosts in Our Machine illuminates the lives of individual animals living within and rescued from the machine of our modern world. The moral question is posed: Are non-human animals property to be owned and used, or are they sentient beings deserving rights?

Wybrane festiwale i nagrody /Selected festivals and awards: 2013 – MFF Vancouver / Vancouver IFF, 2013 – Roberts Creek Arts Festival / Robert Creek Arts Festival, 2013 – PLANETE+ DOC FF: premiera europejska / PLANETE+ DOC FF: European premiere, 2012 – Hot Docs Toronto / Hot Docs Toronto

Attend the debate “Hounted System” following the screening of the film “The Ghosts in Our Machine”. Warsaw, Sunday, May 19, Kinoteka. Wroclaw, Wednesday, May 15, Dolnoslaskie Centrum Filmowe.