PETA India Urges Director Of Gorilla To Drop Plans To Show Real Chimpanzee In Film

After learning that a chimpanzee named Kong will appear in the upcoming movie Gorilla starring Jiiva and Shalini Pandey, PETA India fired off a letter urging director Don Sandy to replace Kong with cutting-edge computer-generated imagery (CGI) and never to feature live animals in his films again. The message included a link to a video featuring a computer-generated chimpanzee who is contemplating suicide, which was created by top advertising agency BBDO and award-winning CGI production company The Mill. The thought-provoking spot illustrates the tragic lives of animal “actors”.

Watch it here:

Great apes used in the film and television industries are commonly torn from their frantic mothers shortly after birth, leaving both mother and baby traumatised for life. Investigations have revealed that trainers often punch, kick, beat, and even electrically shock apes during behind-the-scenes training sessions and on set in order to make them perform “correctly” in the fewest takes possible. When chimpanzees reach adolescence and become too difficult to manage, they’re typically relegated to cramped cages, where they face decades of loneliness and isolation.

Blockbusters such as the Planet of the Apes franchise and The Jungle Book have relied on technical wizardry and advanced CGI to create realistic animal characters without harming or harassing their live counterparts.

You can help: Never support filmmakers who use animal actors.