Animals Are Stars in Doc Fest
The Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival’s Spring Docs Day will celebrate cats, dogs, and songbirds with three films and a daylong silent auction on Sunday from noon to 7 p.m. at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor.
Feline fans will want to catch “The Internet Cat Video Festival,” the fourth installment of the Walker Art Center’s selection of the best cat videos, which will be shown at 1 p.m. Will Braden, the creator of the “Henri Le Chat Noir” series, has assembled the 65-minute program, which features approximately 100 videos and drew 13,000 people to the Minneapolis museum’s outdoor screening space last summer.
Darcy Dennett’s “The Champions” is the story of the pit bulls rescued from the fighting ring of Michael Vick, at that time the Atlanta Falcons’ star quarterback, and Best Friends Animal Society and BADRAP, a pit bull rescue organization, which together saved more than 30 dogs despite pressure from PETA and the Humane Society of the United States to euthanize them. The film also highlights breed discrimination towards pit-bull type dogs. “The Champions” will be shown at 3 p.m.
The final program, set for 5:30, will feature “The Messenger,” a documentary by Su Rynard that explores humans’ deep connection to birds and warns that the uncertain fate of songbirds might mirror our own. Filmed in the northern reaches of the Boreal Forest, the base of Mount Ararat in Turkey, the streets of New York, and other locations, the film focuses on the variety of human-made perils that have devastated thrushes, warblers, orioles, tanagers, grosbeaks, and many other airborne music-makers.
The silent auction, which will run from noon to 7 in the theater’s lobby, will include gifts from local merchants, animal-related presents, gift certificates to local businesses and restaurants, and tickets to the Hampton Classic.
“Spring Docs Day” is being co-presented with the Eastern Long Island Audubon Society, the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, the Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation, the South Fork Natural History Museum, the Friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt, and Tracie Hotchner, a pet wellness advocate and NPR pet radio host.
Tickets to each film are $15, $13 for senior citizens, and $10 for children under 12. An all-day pass can be had for $35.