D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus’ documentary “Unlocking the Cage” shows the culmination of animal-rights lawyer Steven Wise’s years-long battle for the legal personhood of captive chimpanzees.
Wise believes that chimpanzees, cognitively advanced beings that possess self-determination and self-awareness, deserve expanded rights. This belief takes Wise to courtrooms across New York, while Pennebaker and Hegedus film his legal struggle in their lauded hands-off style.
Wise sees his lawsuits not as animal-welfare cases but fights for the rights of individuals - cases he believes have the potential to radically change the way we think of our relationship to nonhuman animals.
On FilmWeek, guest host Patt Morrison interviews Wise, Pennebaker, and Hegedus. What are the ramifications of calling nonhuman animals persons? What does Pennebaker and Hegedus’ iconic style add to Wise’s story? And what might these lawsuits - and this film - mean for the way we think about our nonhuman neighbors?
“Unlocking the Cage” opens today at the Laemmle's Monica Film Center in Santa Monica.
Guests:
D.A. Pennebaker, Filmmaker, “Unlocking the Cage,” recipient of an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement
Chris Hegedus, Filmmaker, “Unlocking the Cage,” Oscar-nominated documentarian
Steven Wise, President of the Nonhuman Rights Project; his work is chronicled in “Unlocking the Cage”