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Synopsis |
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| Astonishingly, nearly 4 million stray or feral cats inhabit the streets, parks, back alleys and backyards of Los Angeles County, and they are reproducing at an alarming rate. The current solution is round-up and kill. But is there a better way? Urban Rescuers profiles a group of fiercely dedicated animal welfare crusaders in Los Angeles who skirt the law in order to rescue feral cats from the certain death they face upon landing in animal shelters. The methodology involves a controversial solution for feral cats known as "TNR" (trap, neuter, return), which calls for sterilizing these animals and then allowing them to live out their lives in the wild. As the TNR process is revealed, passionate and surprising arguments on both sides of the issue are heard from the heads of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the Feral Cat Alliance, the Los Angeles SPCA, and the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation, among others. The documentary shows that TNR is legal in other communities where it works efficiently, within the system. As we investigate, Los Angeles officials are asked to adopt the policy. Urban Rescuers is a thought-provoking journey of ethics, featuring big personalities and stunning footage of feral cats in Southern California. |
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Producer's Commentary: |
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| "I think killing animals in shelters is a copout and it's unacceptable. They can always find the money to impound, house and euthanize cats and dogs. Why can’t they find that same money to spay and neuter?" - Christi Metropole Feral Cat Alliance When I first met Christi Metropole, I was tempted to follow her around with a camera crew day and night. A colorful woman of sharp intelligence and fiery spirit, she is indeed a force to be reckoned with. I knew nothing about feral cats, much less that people were out there trapping them. But the idea of ?TNR? (Trap ? Neuter ? Return) was fascinating to me, and as soon as possible I arranged to join Christi and the Feral Cat Alliance on a trapping at the ravine that is featured throughout the film. Discretion is paramount on these trappings since TNR is still very much underground in Los Angeles - i.e., NOT LEGAL. In that kind of atmosphere, rife with obstacles and trouble, things rarely go as planned. But as we see, Christi is as much a keen negotiator as she is a passionate animal welfare crusader. Inspired to investigate further, I quickly recruited Andrés Navia and Dana Fredsti to join me on the project and during the research, we were amazed to uncover an extraordinary network of people throughout Los Angeles who make up the local animal rescue community. They come to the work for their own reasons, but they all share a fundamental disagreement about how we are organized to treat animals in our society, and they work to change that. Not surprisingly, Christi has taken a leadership role in the criticism of local shelter management, and of the many officials who impact her work around TNR and animal rights in general. As she has pointed out to me: "In many European countries it?s UNHEARD OF to kill animals because there?s no space. When people move, they take their animals with them. It?s part of their culture; you don?t leave your child behind, and you don?t leave your cat and your dog behind." Besides the obvious humanity of these sentiments, it seems to me there?s a commonsense practicality to this approach. One which could mean real savings for the taxpayer ? and might also warrant another documentary. -Nikki Corda |
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 NIKKI CORDA (Writer/Producer) is a graduate of the film program at Boston University's College of Communication, and has over four years of experience in feature film development. After a year at Twentieth Century Fox under John Schimmel, Vice President of Production, Nikki joined Schimmel at Paramount based Douglas / Reuther Productions during the making of Face-Off and The Rainmaker. There she was an instrumental part of the creative team, and eventually ran the story department, while providing creative support to John Schimmel and Michael Douglas. The following year she joined Propaganda Films-based producer Michael Birnbaum as a Creative Executive and helped with the development of Bandits. Nikki began producing with Urban Rescuers, and is currently developing other documentary projects, as well as Garden Green, a Nicholl Fellowship finalist screenplay by Thomas Tytar. In addition, Nikki also oversees Corda Music (a music publishing company with a catalog of over 100 original titles), and has started a videography business: www.Life-Portraits.com.
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 ANDRES NAVIA (Director) made his film debut with Semillas at the 1999 Telluride Film Festival. Semillas went on to receive rave reviews around the world and put him in the spot as emerging talent in the film industry. Andres has signed with various commercial houses since and has directed innovative commercials and cutting edge music videos for the US and abroad. His X-Cultures music video One World, One People reached No. 1 in the US charts and again rocketed his reputation as a talented director with an endless arsenal of visually stunning imagery. His cinematography experience and dedication to extreme action earned him a credit in the TV show Extreme Expeditions, as well as films like Brotherhood of The Wolf, They Are Among Us, and Donnie Darko. Andres recently completed his first feature as director: CRY EVIL: The Legend of La Llorona, and is developing the action feature Gold Rush, as well as Garden Green, a noir thriller with Maria Conchita Alonso.www.andresnavia.com Filmography: 2005 CRY EVIL: The Legend of La Llorona 2003 Urban Rescuers 1999 Semillas |
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 DANA FREDSTI (Co-Writer / Associate Producer) has been writing professionally for over 15 years. She co-directed, produced and wrote for Murder for Hire, a theatrical mystery company in San Diego, which performed a variety of venues, including the Raymond Chandler Festival in La Jolla for three consecutive years. She has published numerous articles, essays and shorts, including stories in: the Catfantastic anthology series edited by Andre Norton; the upcoming Mondo Zombie edited by John Skipp; and Danger City from Contemporary Press. Dana has written several produced low-budget screenplays for film and internet. Dana currently has two scripts optioned by Wolper Development at Warner Brothers, one with Stuart Gordon (Reanimator, Dagon) attached to direct, and the other in conjunction with Stan Winston Productions. She has another script that just finished shooting with Marzullo Productions in the Bay Area. Dana is uniquely suited to write on Urban Rescuers, having rescued and placed over a dozen feral cats. This is her second creative collaboration with Nikki Corda, who was Creative Executive on a script Dana had in development with producer Michael Birnbaum.
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| TREE ADAMS (Music Composer) currently works out of his Hollywood studio, Treehouse Music, as a composer, songwriter, and producer. As a recording artist, he recorded three CDs with Atlantic Records. Subsequently, he has recorded nine CD’s independently. In addition, he has produced several projects in collaboration with several turntablists and rap artists like DJ Midas and D. Downs, fusing traditional blues and groove with elements of hip hop and electronica. As a composer Tree Adams has just finished scoring a full season of the WB television sitcom, “Raising Dad.” In addition, he has just done numerous songs and score cues for Paul Schrader’s Sony film, Auto Focus starring Willem DaFoe and Greg Kinnear. Tree has also contributed original score and/or songs to many projects such as Drowning Mona, Casper, Black Mask, Soul Survivors, The Breaks, & Poor White Trash as well as television shows like Felicity, The Guardian, MTV Road Rules, A&E Biographies, The NFL and That’s Life to name a few. Tree Adams is represented by Rich Jacobellis at First Artist Management. www.Treeadams.com |
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| SETH SHAPIRO (Composer of Main Title Theme) Composer/guitarist Seth Shapiro is a leading new media producer with a diverse background. Originally a jazz guitarist, he studied composition and electronic music at the Cleveland Institute of Music and NYU. He was a technical producer for the launch of ACTV, an early leader in interactive television via satellite. After watching Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons build Def Jam in his dorm, he left ACTV to start KOE Recordings, a nationally-distributed independent label. Moving to L.A and returning to new media, Seth worked at Jones Intercable, as senior software engineer for the award-winning Charlton Heston’s Voyage Through The Bible CD-ROM series, and as Producer at Davidson and Associates. From 1996- 2000 he was Senior Producer at Disney Interactive, designing CD-ROMs for properties including Tarzan, 102 Dalmatians, Beauty & The Beast and Aladdin. Seth currently directs interactive service production at DIRECTV, principally for the TiVo DVR platform. Service partners include HBO, STARZ, Showtime and IFC, and the NFL Highlights On Demand service. In 2000, he led the production launch of DIRECTV Interactive (currently in 6 million US homes) with ESPN, NBC, Bloomberg and others. www.newamsmedia.com seth@newamsmedia.com |
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| CHRISTI METROPOLE is the inspiration behind Urban Rescuers. She grew up in Los Angeles amongst a family of animal welfare advocates, and as a child, she assumed everyone treated animals with the same degree of compassion. After graduating from UCLA where she was a theatre major, she pursued a career teaching children but continued her lifelong calling of helping animals, with a special interest in the plight of feral cats. On a summer evening in 1998, Christi grew frustrated while attempting to rescue and fix 25 kittens in a neighbor?s yard, and realized there was a desperate need for people who wanted to help but lacked the finances and expertise of trapping. This led her to found the Feral Cat Alliance, which has since grown by leaps and bounds. Over the last three years, the Feral Cat Alliance has aided in the TNR process (Trap-Neuter-Return) of more than 12,000 cats in Los Angeles County. Today, the Feral Cat Alliance continues to promote the rights and welfare of all feral cats and kittens, to make sure they are fixed, maintained properly and that they are allowed to live out their lives. Christi still resides in Los Angeles where she runs Stray Cat Alliance (formerly Feral Cat Alliance), teaches school children, and enjoys photography in her very limited spare time. www.feralcatalliance.org |
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