Animal

To each generation its struggle. This is ours.

Each living species is a master- piece of singular beauty. We treat animals however with incredible off-hand contempt,” wrote Claude-Levi Strauss. We cannot assess how animals suffer without somehow suffering ourselves, because animals live hellish lives, the responsibility of which is ours. Our animal cruelty is indicative of all the evil of which we are capable. Defend- ing animal rights is a difficult cause, a bitter relentless struggle, exposing its proponents to great violence. But it is a generous cause driven by the hope of a better, fairer and less violent world. For our violence towards animals reflects the violence that humans perpetrate against themselves.

In the movie Animal, Cyril Dion invites Bella and Vipulan, two teenage climate activists to explore the world in order to better understand the roots of animal cruelty, a degree of cruelty never before witnessed in the history of humanity or of life on earth for that matter. In the course of their travels, they encounter the people who, in situ, have found concrete solutions to preserve biodiversity, prepare ecosystems, and promote forms of more peaceful rights sold to germany (reclam), spain (seix barral), italy (ambiente edizioni); china (thinkingdom media group), korea (galapagos), japan (shin hyoron) cohabitation with life on the planet. In other words, different ways of living together. The book coincides with the release of the movie, Animal, and looks more closely at Bella and Vipulan’s journey into the heart of the sixth great mass extinction. On this voyage of initiation, Bella and Vipulan have to overcome their fears and preconceived ideas. In the course of their world tour, they harvest a whole host of solutions to fight against pollution, overexploitation and the destruction of natural habitats.

What is the real place of humans on the planet, this small blue bead lost in the infinity of space? With all the rage and hope of sixteen year olds, Bella and Vipulan set out in search of different ways to be human on Earth.