Showing with closed or open captions. The intro and Q&A on May 3 will include ASL interpretation.
At Rowdy Girl Sanctuary, the animals—cows, goats, pigs and even Sealy, the resident turkey—have names because Renee King-Sonnen, a former Texas cattle rancher, has committed her life to a new way of being with farm animals. Feisty, charismatic and determined, she has transformed her husband’s beef operation into an animal sanctuary, and her passion is contagious as she mentors others who want to abandon animal agriculture for plant-based food production. Careful camerawork allows us to witness her extraordinary way of building emotional connections with other farmers, ranchers and animals. Renee and her husband are unlikely characters who discuss animal rights and veganism—issues that can be fraught. But the couple are anything but divisive; they intimately understand the social and economic realities that come with managing a beef farm in the red state of Texas. Their commitment to sustainability offers an uplifting, solution-oriented story about alternative farming ideas with one goal: to improve the lives of animals and their human caretakers along the way. Selina Crammond
Streaming online May 5-9. Streaming is only available in Canada.