We live in a flat

There is a free outdoor screening of the movie Twelve nights《十二夜》on Saturday, 5 July. I was just looking at the trailer the other night. And after further research, I think it will help us all look at my Dogspotting in Taipei articles in a different light.

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A documentary about what dogs experience at a high-kill shelter in Taiwan

Twelve nights is a made in Taiwan documentary about dogs who are taken into a government-run shelter. New dogs taken in only have 12 days in which to get adopted before they die of disease or are destroyed.

… A new documentary about the plight of animals in Taiwan’s shelters has sparked a public discussion about the treatment of stray dogs and cats on the island, prompting the government to amend its policies.

The film shows many dogs entering the shelter looking healthy but later falling ill or dying due to the rampant transmission of canine distemper and other diseases inside the facility. – wall street journal

Here’s a clip with the director, cinematographer and producer speaking. I couldn’t find a clip with English subtitles, but basically they spoke about how they couldn’t remain objective about the filming even though as documentary makers, they should have kept a distance. Newsworkers do not interfere with the subjects, but it appeared they provided medical care and interacted with the dogs during the filming.

The purpose of the film changed. It is branded with the slogan – Adopt, Don’t Abandon. The passion they have for the topic is palpable.

The purpose of the film, (the director Raye) said, is to influence policy makers with more effective solutions on reducing the stray-animal population, including adoption, laws requiring pet owners to implant microchips in their pets for ID purposes, and neutering or spaying animals. – wall street journal

“Animal shelters are helping to solve a difficult problem that our society has long neglected. They are not the documentary’s target of criticism,” (Producer, Giddens Ko) said. “Our criticism is aimed at the people who have created this problem: The pet owners who abandoned these animals.” – Taipei Times

Warning There is a section of the clip below featuring a shutdown dog in a corner while two dogs are fighting each other in the same cage that can be distressing if you are easily affected by dogs that are in distress.  

The female director adopted one of the dogs in the end as shown in the clip.

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Relating back to Dogspotting in Taiwan posts

In the post These dogs own the streets in Pingxi, Taiwan, Katie commented, “Judging by these photos I think life must be quite different for dogs there as opposed to here in the UK. Whether they are owned or not dogs aren’t allowed to roam here, and are collected by a dog warden. How does that work there in Pingxi?”

Well, now we know there are government run shelters where the dogs are collected together for a short period of time. Twelve days for this particular shelter and 30 days for some others, so it ranges.

The documentary has a strong agenda against abandonment of dogs, which at this point I assume could be more of a a city problem. This following clip explains that the living conditions of city dogs and rural village dogs differ in Taiwan. Where we were at, there were no tall buildings so we can probably categorise that are of Pingxi we were at as more rural.

There is no English subtitle, so I have provided a summary below the clip.

In the rural areas, the way they treat dogs is very casual. A dog could have joined a household because the neighbour had a litter and is giving the puppies away. Or sometimes a stray dog wandered in, got fed and never left.

There are no barriers to keep a pet dog or a stray from running in or out of the house or yard. Owners/feeders give the dogs food to eat, thereafter the dogs are free to wander out again, and return when it’s mealtime.

And because the accidental litters and the adoption of the stray dogs that wandered in are unplanned, the owners may not have the finances to send the dogs to the vet to be neutered. This resulted in more unwanted litters and more strays.

The clip is produced by Director Raye, who after Twelve Nights, contacted local groups who have been involved in animal welfare to request to film them and their activities. These include veterinarians who go to the rural villages to volunteer their services in Trap, Neuter and Return programmes.

In the clip, these vets are shown to be operating on cats and dogs laid out on desks in a hall. The set up doesn’t look sophisticated. A dog undergoing the procedure is shown to be tied spread eagle to the legs of the desk. The vets look somewhat like factory workers working in a row, except that each of them were cutting into more than 10 animals for the day they were there and helping to solve the problem of the overpopulation of strays from the source. You have to admire the vets who actually make it out there to devote their off-work day to doing more than 10 surgeries in a stuffy hall in summer time.

And thinking back, it really was not difficult to spot a dog when we were exploring Taipei and the areas around it. How else would I, a tourist, be able to write an on-going series on this topic, based on a week’s travel there? How massive is this problem of stray dogs reproducing themselves?

Taiwan’s public animal shelters took in more than 11,400 animals last year (2012), during which time 50% were destroyed and 29% were placed in new homes, according to the Council of Agriculture. (Most of the remaining 21% died while in the shelter.) – wsj

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How the documentary has been described

Taiwan’s public animal shelters are clearly overwhelmed with the stray population. I haven’t watched the show yet, but M.C. at shibasenji.wordpress.com has! Some things he said about how the shelter and the dogs are presented in the documentary that caught my attention:

Who are the emotional masochists who choose to purchase a movie ticket, enter the theater, and purposely watch a film that they know is going to bring them to anguish and tears? 

Twelve Nights is so much more than that fatal deadline indicated in the title, or the duration of entrapment in this “shelter” that is more accurately described as a death-row prison… How do you convince people to actually purchase a movie ticket and sit through such a painful film…? …Why do you want to expose them to animal suffering and cruelty, and the visage of real death? Must we see these things to know that they exist?

I think there are many valid ethical questions when subjecting audiences to screen violence of any kind. – shibasenji

I think I have lifted enough of his thoughtful prose, please visit to see the full review which has much more.

And if you are that sort of emotional masochist, the free screening information is below:

Information about the Free  Twelve Nights film screening in Singapore

This is a rain or shine outdoor event, so remember to bring along an umbrella in case of rainy weather. No seats will be provided, so bring along a picnic mat as it is an open grass field.

Date/Time: 5th July, Saturday, 5pm (Screening starts at 7.30pm)
Venue: Marina Barrage, Rooftop (Free seating)
No registration is required

Kindly refrain from bringing your pets as the image and audio from the documentary may bother them.  – TAP

I thought it was interesting that dog lovers consider bringing their own dogs to the screening. It is a public space, so I suppose if they were to bring their own dogs, nobody would say no. But I had a look at the trailer and already it was so noisy, Donna came into the room to check out what was happening.

In the entire documentary, you barely see any human faces, you barely even hear the shelter workers’ voices. Locked in on animal visages, the cinematographer was able to elicit more personality and more charisma from every single one of these documentary subjects than some purportedly dog-centric films starring trained animal actors. –shibasenji.wordpress.com

One hour and thirty minutes of film time and you only hear dogs. While Donna can sleep longer than that amount of time at home, I am certain she would not settle calmly in a new place full of strangers (especially if there are other dogs around) and the sounds of dogs barking, growling, sometimes crying in distress coming from the big screen.

In any case, while I admire what the movie makers are trying to achieve, like Shibasenji pointed out, I don’t feel like I need to sit through the misery to get an idea of the pain and suffering that happens in there. I generally do not like sad movies. So I will probably KIV this documentary to play on DVD on one of those days I need something to cry over.

If you are local and attending the event, enjoy ;)

• Twelve Nights official website
• Twelve Nights Trailer
• Posts tagged “twelve nights” by producer Giddens Ko (cn)