New ‘Bambi’ Film Criticized by Animal Rights Group

The association Projet Animaux Zoopolis (PAZ) has launched a petition to demand the cancellation of a preview screening in Montreuil. It accuses the production of using wild animal trainers.

On October 16, the most famous of young fawns will return to the big screen. Bambi, the story of a life in the woods is the new feature film by French filmmaker Michel Fessier, a close collaborator of Luc Jacquet, with whom he wrote March of the Penguins in 2004. But this new Bambi, told by the singer Mylène Farmer, provokes controversy. The animal protection association Projet animaux zoopolis (PAZ) accuses the production of having used “wild animal trainers“. Bambi, embodied by a real fawn, but also Panpan the rabbit, the courageous doe, the shady owl and, of course, Bambi’s father, prince of the forest, a great deer, wise and free. They are deprived of their freedom, according to the NGO.

The animals, “actors” in the film, were all raised in captivity, for the needs of the cinema. Mr. Owl in an aviary, Bambi in an enclosure. However, if they are fed by man, they are nonetheless, according to the association, wild animals, having the same genetic heritage, and therefore the same needs, as their counterparts living in the wild.For a few minutes on screen, animals are deprived of freedom for their entire lives and undergo the violence of training. Even though there are technical alternatives to represent animals on screen (computer-generated images, animatronics, video clips from image banks, etc.)“, explains Amandine Sanvisens, co-founder of the PAZ association, which launched a petition demanding the feature film’s removal from the Montreuil Film Festival, which will premiere it on Sunday, September 29.

Contacted by franceinfo, Alexie Lorca, deputy mayor responsible for culture in the city of Montreuil, explained that she does not intervene in the programming of the public cinema, to which she assures “trust completely“. She regrets this desire to “censoring works of art“, and claims that a debate will be organized after the screening of the film on Sunday. Alexie Lorca also highlights the fact that the last Bambi was sponsored by the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO). Questioned by franceinfo, the LPO claims, for its part, to have decided to support the film, because it “raises awareness about wildlife“, and because animals”have not suffered any mistreatment” during filming.

Finally, if the latest Bambi is so controversial, it is perhaps because it raises the question of what connects humans to animals, and what distinguishes them. But also because it questions our collective behaviors towards wildlife, and perhaps even, more generally, towards the most fragile, the most destitute. Because, as Felix Salten, author of the very first Bambi, wrote in 1923: “Free animals are separated from captives by a gap as wide as that which separates the rich from the poor.“.