Today, feature-length documentary
Gunda is making its streaming debut. Created by Russian filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky and executively produced by vegan actor Joaquin Phoenix, the black-and-white documentary zeros in on the life of mother pig Gunda and her piglets, telling their family story without narration or music. The family along with a one-legged chicken and free-roaming cows does not live on a factory farm but rather in an open barn in Norway. Throughout
Gunda, Kossakovsky offers a long, intimate look at the animals as they develop relationships and interact with their surroundings. While Kossakovsky does not depict the family’s ultimate fate in a gruesome matter, the viewer is made acutely aware that these intelligent beings are slaughtered for food except for Gunda, who is spared due to her celebrity status after the film’s release. “But Gunda, she became so famous … so many people stopped eating meat (due to the film) that the owner of the farm decided she will