 The Animal Thing is a Texas Premiere and Director Adam Linzey will be in attendance with Dr. Clair Linzey The life of controversial Animal Rights pioneer and maverick theologian Andrew Linzey is explored by his filmmaker son: A life spent as a progressive voice in the Anglican Church, as a polarizing force at the University of Oxford, and as a tireless campaigner for animals. This is an intimate portrait of a father who rigidly followed his moral compass at great personal cost.  Director Adam Linzey http://www.theanimalthing.com https://www.adamandjesse.com Adam Linzey is an award-winning British writer, director and cinematographer. He grew up in Oxford, England. At age 8, Adam accompanied his father to a TV studio, peering through the camera lenses. He didn’t want to come home and some say he never did. Adam won the Royal Television Society award for best student film for his undergraduate thesis film. He has directed numerous short films, which have received excellent critical reviews and played in festivals worldwide, picking up prestigious awards and nominations.  THE ANIMAL THING feature documentary about animal activist Dr. Andrew Linzey is our closing night movie Saturday evening, after the award ceremony, and is a Texas Premier. Director Adam Linzey will be in attendance, as will Dr Clair Linzey, Deputy Director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. Dr Clair Linzey is a Research Fellow in Animal Ethics at Wycliffe Hall in the University of Oxford. Clair Linzey is a writer and an academic who works in the area of animal ethics. She works with and is inspired by the subject of "The Animal Thing," her Dad. This is her first time producing a movie, but she wanted to help shine a light on his work for animals.  Also in attandance with The Animal Thing team, Susan Boggio. Susan and her husband Dan are proud and early supporters of the Animal Thing documentary as Executive Producers. They are also Honorary Fellows at the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics where Susan often attends and supports the Centre's Summer School. Susan also has her own animal rescue in Houston, TX called Happy Faces Pet Ranch where she rescues, restores and rehomes animals in need. Susan and Dan are supporters of other beings in the world enduring suffering of all kinds--children and refugees among them. Susan has traveled with her human charity work to India and Africa and also visited the largest Syrian Refugee camp in the world, Zatari in Amman, Jordan. Susan has been Board Chair of UNICEF USA, SW Region and a founding member of the UNICEF International Council.
Director Statement This isn’t easy to write. As a filmmaker I find it a lot easier making films about subjects than I do writing about them. It’s even more challenging to write about something so very personal. But here goes… I didn’t start with the objective of making a feature documentary about my father. Instead, I was trying to make something that was real and authentic. I wanted to make something that shows the incredible toll being an advocate or activist can have on someone. While interviewing Joyce Tischler, a trailblazing animal rights lawyer, for the documentary she said, “Animal people are often broken people.” As soon as she said that, I realized she might as well be describing my dad. It’s so important to tell this story now while he’s still around. My father is 71 but with his poor health he looks like someone 10 years older. This is often the case for people who spend their entire lives fighting for something they deeply care about. Some people call this compassionate fatigue, others call it burnout, or so on. Whatever you call it, it’s certainly taken its toll on my father. I’m not exaggerating when I say he was at death's door at moments shooting this film, in December 2022 he had a triple heart bypass, without which the doctor said he had about 2 weeks to live. That combined with depression, high blood pressure, and diabetes it was truly now or never when it came to making this film. It's been a tough film to make, both as a journey learning about the challenges my father faced, but there's also been the challenge of getting him to open up. My father is not someone who does so easily. I’ve spent countless hours filming him, coaxing him in every manner possible, in order to talk about his life and, as you’ll see in the film, he pushed back at every stage. So why is this so important that I needed to spend two years making this? The simple answer is because he’s made a massive, and largely unheralded, impact on the issue of animal rights across the world. I grew up in the 80s and 90s when it was still pretty weird to be vegetarian. I was teased relentlessly in school. The world has changed dramatically in that time, people have opened up to the idea that animals are important and do have value. My father has been a major part of that cultural shift, he’s certainly not been alone, but he’s one of a handful of people that said, we need to think differently about animals. He’s a rare bird, there’s not many Christian theologians that are also progressive thinkers. I suppose to put a fine point on it, what I’m trying to say is this: Most people who know my father, Andrew Linzey, regard his life as a great success. But Dad sees his life rather differently, he sees it as a series of failures. Now looking back, I wanted to finally tell his story: To explore his ideas and hopefully prove that he’s not a failure. Thank you for reading, Adam |
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