''Behind the Mask: The Story of the People Who Risk Everything to Save Animals'' is a 2006
documentary film
A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
about the
Animal Liberation Front
The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is a Far-left politics, far-left international, Leaderless resistance, leaderless, decentralized movement that emerged in Britain in the 1970s, evolving from the Bands of Mercy. It operates without a formal lead ...
(ALF). It took three years of filming, interviewing, and editing to complete. The movie was created by
animal rights
Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have Moral patienthood, moral worth independent of their Utilitarianism, utility to humans, and that their most basic interests—such as ...
lawyer
Shannon Keith, who owns Uncaged Films and ARME (Animal Rescue, Media & Education).
About
The film is about animal rights activists who break into laboratories and other facilities to obtain footage of the way animals are used. It includes well-known names within the
animal rights movement
The animal rights movement, sometimes called the animal liberation, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a social movement that advocates an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, ...
, some of whom have been imprisoned for taking
direct action
Direct action is a term for economic and political behavior in which participants use agency—for example economic or physical power—to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is to either obstruct a certain practice (such as a governm ...
. According to the film's producer Shannon Keith, a lawyer, "change only happens in society when laws are broken", and according to arsonist Melanie Arnold who set ablaze a slaughterhouse, "If I had an opportunity, I would do it again since economic damage to animal abusers is justifiable."
See also
*
Animal liberation movement
The animal rights movement, sometimes called the animal liberation, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a social movement that advocates an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, ...
References
External links
*
{{Portal bar, Animals, Film, United States, Society
2006 documentary films
American independent films
Animal Liberation Front
Documentary films about animal rights
Documentary films about animal testing
Documentary films about politics
Documentary films about terrorism
Films about activists
2000s English-language films
2000s American films
English-language documentary films