Herd & The Answer - Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 5PM

Saturday, June 03, 2023 @ 5:00pm

NJ Film Festival
71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901

After this content becomes available June 3rd at 12:00 am EDT, you'll have 23 hours 59 minutes to start watching. Once you begin, you'll have 24 hours to finish watching.

Herd – Michel Negroponte (Livingston Manor, New York)

A herd of shaggy Belted Galloway cattle is delivered to a neighboring pasture in the Catskills and instantly inspires a new film. The filmmaker's growing fascination with the complex forces that propel the animals through one season to the next leads him to reflect on the modern idea of animal personhood. The cows graze and chew their cud, new calves are born, the mothers diligently safeguard their offspring while the bull dominates the herd. Like humans, cows have distinct characteristics: some are giddy, some private, others wise and placid. What are the mysterious forces that drive the cattle? Is their curiosity hardwired into their brains? Are cows sentient? Why do humans believe they have dominion over animals? These questions have been asked for centuries: Aristotle believed that animals are purely instinctual whereas Pythagoras believed that reincarnation moved souls from humans to cows. Equal part rumination, observation and meditation, the film reveals the cow's essence and challenges us to think differently about our fellow living animal beings. 2023; 66 min.

The Answer – Matt Kliegman (Brooklyn, New York)

Set against a backdrop of a city in constant flux, beset by generations of deterioration and government mismanagement, the current Mayor of Atlantic City fights the legal and political process to demolish the decaying and hazardous Trump Plaza Casino. 2023; 11 min.