Independent Film Festival Boston 2009

Director Geralyn Pezanoski in attendance.

The images are, by now, heartbreakingly familiar: a great city is flooded; news footage of the disaster is punctuated with stray shots of abandoned dogs on rooftops. But once the citizens of New Orleans crowded into the Superdome to flee Hurricane Katrina’s unholy wrath, what became of their beloved pets? Geralyn Pezanoski’s deceptively simple, curiously affecting documentary explores a little-told side of this oft-documented disaster. MINE follows fearless animal-rescue workers such as Karen O’Toole, who charged into the submerged wreckage, saving hundreds of pooches and kittens from certain starvation. But O’Toole’s daring mission was only the beginning. How to house and shelter thousands of displaced animals, particularly when there are so many human refugees taking such obvious priority?

Furthermore, after the poor pets’ displaced owners have been scattered to the four winds, how does one even begin tackling the years-long logistical nightmare of reuniting these folks with their precious companions? Even worse, say the workers succeed in that unlikely effort––what then becomes of the bond between these refugee animals and their temporary, adoptive guardians? Pezanoski can give no easy answers in an impossible situation. Instead, MINE sketches indelible, deeply moving portraits of animal lovers reaching out to one another in the face of massive tragedy: people like 70-year-old Gloria Richardson, who was forcibly removed from her home by the National Guard, as she refused to budge without her chocolate lab, Murphy Brown. Their tales are haunting, but inspiring.

Winner, Audience Award, Best Documentary - South by Southwest

- Vincent Archer