Toronto Film Festival To Show Film on Cat Killing

[QueenScoopalot]

Subject: Toronto Int. Film Fest. to screen "Casuistry: The Art of
Killing a Cat"

Greetings,
IDA has learned that the Toronto Film Festival plans to screen
"Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat" during their "Real to Real"
program. This film glorifies atrocities committed by three youths in
2001
when they videotaped themselves skinning alive a domestic cat and
called
it art. Several of the police who watched the videotapes had to stop
watching; some of them cried.
The three youths were all given slaps on the wrist and are now out on
the
street today capable of committing further atrocities.

Below please find the column that appeared in the Toronto Sun, (also
available at
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Column...el/2004/08/28/
605479.html).

What you can do:

Please write to Toronto Film Festival Officials and let them know that
you are disgusted.ツ Tell them you are boycotting the festival if this
film is not pulled.
Contact: Lynnette Gryseels, Press Officer Michele Maheux, Managing
Director Toronto Film Festival E-mail: [email protected];
[email protected]; [email protected];
[email protected] Tel.: (416) 934-3200 Fax: (416)
581-0214

Sample letter:
To the organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival:

I was horrified to learn that Linda Feesey's film, ・廚asuistry: The
Art
of Killing a Cat,・・is scheduled as part of the Toronto Film
Festival.As you likely know, the film discusses the notorious case of 2001 in
which Jesse Power, Anthony Wennekers, and Matt Kaczorowski videotaped
themselves torturing a cat.
We would welcome efforts to raise awareness about this act of cruelty.
However, you may not be aware that the producer, Linda Feesey, is an
associate of the cat torturers. (For example, her 2002 film, Mr.
Kafka's
Holiday, starred Jesse Power's friend Jubal Brown, who was outspoken
in
his support of Power during the cat video case.) Casuistry is another
opportunity for Power and his friends to defend their horrendous
actions.
According to the review in the Toronto Sun, the film features many
apologists for the cat torturers. The killers show no remorse for
their
crime.
By including this film in the Festival, you are not only condoning, but
encouraging Jesse Power and his ilk in their actions of extreme,
premeditated, and illegal cruelty to animals. We urge you to remove
this
film from your program. Please let me know as soon as possible what
action you will take. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely, _______
Monday, August 30, 2004 COLUMNIST Sat, August 28, 2004 It gets even
loopier

By MIKE STROBEL -- For the Toronto Sun
Casuistry: (1) The act of deciding questions of right from wrong. (2)
Clever but false reasoning.
And here we thought the Kensington cat snuff film was evil, pure and
simple.
That we were right to revile the three goofs who made it and be
repulsed
by their work. That nothing, nothing, could justify it. Now along
comes
Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat. It premieres at the Toronto Film
Festival Sept. 14. The producer gave me a tape, since I wrote about the case.

You need not be a cat-lover to remember: Jesse Power, Anthony
Wennekers
and Matt Kaczorowski, all 20-ish, made a snuff film one Friday night
in 2001.
For 17 minutes, they tormented, tortured, and oh, so, slowly, killed a
gentle, striped female cat in a Kensington house. The unlucky pet was
later found skinned in a beer fridge. It was art, said Jesse Power,
the
lead goof.

A few of Toronto's loopier artistes defended them, but hardly anyone
else
did. I mean, this was the Bernardo/Homolka of animal cruelty cases.

Now, at last, the Three Stooges have their say. Casuistry: The Art of
Killing a Cat is produced by Linda Feesey and directed by Zev Asher.
She
made Sex and Cerebral Palsy. He made What About Me: The Rise of the
Nihilist Spasm Band. They are not Disney.
To set the mood, they open Casuistry with scenes from a 1980
"performance
art" flick, in which two cats are disembowelled and worn as hats.
Istvan
Kantor filmed that gem. He has since won a Governor General's Award.
But
Jesse Power is the star of Casuistry. (It's his special word, right
before "cat" in the dictionary.) He's even the soundtrack, yowling his
Anti-Meat Eating Song. He speaks first in shadow, then, as he warms to
the topic, in full view.
His bangs dangle sexily. His eyes toy with the camera. "Man, am I
charismatic," they say. "And misunderstood." And a whiner. The cops
"went all righteous on me." Or, "I never got to eat the cat, but a lot of
other
people are feasting off of this cat."
Or, things got gory because he and his pals were "disorganized" and
one
of them gave him a dull razor. Plus they were dozy on drugs. And,
anyway,
"everything takes a long time to die, no matter what it is." He got 90
days, on weekends. He blames the papers, and society, and the young
woman
who called the cops (in hopes of a reward, says our Jesse).
Pal Wennekers even manages to blame cats, "just a smarter version of
rats, an artifact of human culture." Sometimes, bull-fights or
squealing
swine flash across Casuistry. Remember, Power's "art video" was to
show
the "hypocrisy" of pets in a world of abattoirs. And, step right up,
see
Jesse Power chop off a runt chicken's head. See him cuddle a rotting pig,
play puppet with a baby orangutan's corpse. There is none of the
Kensington tape.
The filmmakers couldn't get their hands on it. They also couldn't find
any backers, even in usually fertile arts councils and grant offices.
Total budget was, oh, $500. Apologists were a dime a dozen, though. A
friend of Matt's tells us how the guy is a talented writer and once
asked for a teddy bear. "Artists" say things like: "Young men, as they'regrowing up and learning how things work, they always kill something.
It's
part of growing and developing as a young person." Det. John
Margetson,
the humane society and the like, bring some balance and sense, thank
goodness. "I cannot condone, or condemn, what (Power and Co.) did,"
says
Zev Asher, down the line from Montreal. "I think it was a misguided
adventure, that they were inebriated and did something sick and
stupid.
"I think Jesse is an artist. I don't think this was art at all, though
I
understand what he was trying to do." I dunno. You should see those 17
minutes, Mr. Asher. I have. So when Jesse Power smirks that maybe
he'll
be "torn apart by a cougar" when he goes camping...it's hard not to
root
for the cougar.

[QueenScoopalot]

http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2004/u...ult.asp#item11

And a journalist's story:

A story from the Toronto Star:
Festival should pull plug on cat-killing movie
RONDI ADAMSON

Twice this year I have gone to movies I didn't particularly want to see,
because, as a journalist, I figured I may want to write about them. In both
cases, Mel Gibson's Passion Of The Christ and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit
9-11, I did end up writing about them. In both cases I hated the movies.
Similarly, people tell me I should also see Casuistry: The Art Of Killing A
Cat, scheduled as part of the Toronto International Film Festival, before
making a judgment.
No, I don't need to. I can make a judgment. I am willing to make a judgment
right now and stand by it.
The movie is sick, and I hope no one goes to see it.
Better yet, I hope the people at the film festival will come to their senses
and consider pulling it out of their lineup before the festival begins.
The movie, a 90-minute documentary, examines the videotaped skinning alive
of a stray cat at the hands of Jesse Power, Anthony Wennekers and Matt
Kaczorowski in Toronto in 2001 (for which our justice system delivered some
stern slaps on the wrist).
Several justifications have been made for the videotaped torture. One was
that it was some form of art.
Another was that it was a deep commentary on society's cruelty toward
animals.
Apparently, it was actually a pro-kindness to animals video.
Imagine being asked to believe that Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka were
actually making a statement about the wrongs of child rape and murder with
their videos.
A particularly preposterous argument I have heard this week, trying to
justify both the original torture, and Casuistry: The Art Of Killing A Cat,
is that animals are brutalized in slaughterhouses, too.
Even slaughterhouses have standards. And while I'm willing to believe some
don't respect those standards, the standards exist.
Animals that are killed for food are killed as humanely as possible, not
slowly tortured to death by three young men who smirk about it afterwards
and become stars of a movie three years later.
And as 5-year-olds know, two wrongs do not make a right.
A film festival programmer, speaking of the decision to schedule Casuistry:
The Art Of Killing A Cat, said "that's what the festival is all about,
setting the terms for debate, not stifling them." The makers of the movie
say they want to give a "balanced view."
Debate? A balanced view? Of gratuitous cruelty? Of torture?
Of taking pleasure out of the suffering of a living creature?
I guess, being blonde and all, I'm too simple-minded to get how there could
be any matter to debate here. The only balanced view is that the torture of
that cat was a psychotic act.
Many of the news reports concerning both the original video and this
documentary have focused on "animal-rights activists." Or "cat lovers."
I do not think one needs to be either to be utterly outraged and disgusted
by the original "incident" as some have politely termed it, and by the
justifications behind the making of this movie.
You need simply to be normal.
No one is suggesting animals should vote, or buy real estate, but that they
ey
are living creatures who feel fear and pain just as we do.
If it makes a person flaky to know this, then I guess Albert Einstein,
Gandhi and George Bernard Shaw all carried the "flaky" mantle well. This is
not to mention the overwhelming evidence indicating that those who torture
animals will eventually do the same to a human.
The documentary itself will apparently show us how sorry Power, Wennekers
and Kaczorowski are for their actions.
"They really do regret the whole thing," one of the movie's producers has
said. "They're not trying to glorify themselves."
I'm so happy to hear that.
If they are sorry, and not interested in self-glorification or attention,
perhaps they can donate money to animal shelters (provided they stay
kilometres and kilometres away from the animal shelters) in between the
hours and hours of therapy I hope they are getting.
In the meantime, I suggest no one see this movie, or calibrate in order to
excuse it, or give any support to the sickos behind the real story.

Here is the link to the film festival schedule:
http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2004/f...sp?pageID=real
toreel&id=54