We Don’t Deserve Dogs.
The New Haven Documentary Film Festival kicks off the weekend portion of its program Friday evening with two films that focus on two of its favorite subjects: music and animals.
We Don’t Deserve Dogs takes a trip around the world to view the multitude of ways dogs affect the people around them, providing comfort, inspiration, support, and so much more. Individual stories highlight the unique as well as the universal roles they play in their communities, whether it be at a pub in Scotland or walking the streets of Istanbul.
Directed by Matthew Sallah, this in-depth and deeply moving film offers multiple opportunities to revel in the connections made and bonds formed between humans and these animals. There are moments that offer smiles, like a doggie birthday party complete with elaborate costumes, and there are moments that may cause tears, like the stories of the former child soldiers in Uganda whose dogs helped them deal with their PTSD.
Filmed with a great reverence for its subjects, and often from the point of view of the dogs themselves, this documentary will give even the most avid dog lover a new appreciation for their favorite pet and best friend. (Donations — food, supplies, and monetary — for the Friends of the New Haven Animal Shelter are also being accepted during this event, which takes place at the New Haven Free Public Library.)
Organ Stops: Saving the King of Instruments.
Later that evening NHDocs, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music present Organ Stops: Saving the King of Instruments, a film by James Dawson that follows Martin Renshaw throughout the United Kingdom as he and a small group of others carry out “organ rescue missions,” saving pipe organs from churches that have closed or are in the process of closing.
The history of these incredible instruments — which are masterful works of art in and of themselves — is examined, as are the people who play them, some since childhood and some who have come to them only in the past few years. Attention is paid to the effect of the loss of the churches and their music on these small communities. but hope perseveres with one particular congregation eagerly anticipating, with Renshaw’s help, that they might possibly have one of these abandoned pipe organs for their very own. (Will he find one for them? You will have to watch the movie to find out.)
Organ Stops shines a light on how one’s passion for an instrument and its history can keep the music and a musical community alive and lively. The event — held at St. Paul and St. James Episcopal Church — also features two performances, one by Nathanial Gumbs on the pipe organ and one featuring Gumbs in a duet with Michael Flynt on trumpet.
Tickets for the above events and others in the film festival’s lineup can be purchased at the NHDocs website here.