“Spanish documentary ‘Fauna’ explores animal experimentation in Covid-19 vaccine development amidst rural contrast at Canadian Hot Docs”

Toronto (Canada), May 4. The Spanish documentary “Fauna”, in which the director Pau Faus deals with animal experimentation for the development of the covid-19 vaccine and the contrast with the rural world, has become one of the favorites of the festival audience Canadian Hot Docs, which takes place in Toronto.

The film has positioned itself as the third favorite of the audience at the festival, the most important documentary film in North America, which began on May 27 and will close its XXX edition on May 7.

In “Fauna,” Faus contrasts the world of a shepherd living with his flocks with work at the Center for Research in Animal Health (CReSA) near Barcelona, ​​Spain, when scientists were striving to develop a vaccine against covid-19 at the height of the pandemic.

Faus told EFE that, after receiving the commission from the production company Nanouk Films to make a documentary about the work to develop the vaccine, he visited CReSA, where the animal experimentation phase of the serum against covid was being carried out.

“When I went to see this scenario, apparently secondary to my story, I found it very interesting,” explained Faus in Toronto, where he went to present his film.

“It was a place that condensed a lot of what was happening: people locked up, under very powerful security measures, with the virus in their hands trying to decipher what was happening – he added -, but framed by a window that overlooked a forest where there was that nature.”

Faus was interested in the fact that the animal testing phase of the vaccine development process was never widely publicized.

“The interest in talking about animal experimentation was combined, which is essential for modern medicine, and the contrast between the modern and the archaic that is the forest, the shepherd. Those pieces made us see that there was a film that could work” , added the Catalan director.

Faus acknowledged that before starting filming he was not aware of the large number of medicines or medical treatments that exist thanks to animal experimentation, “the contradiction of sacrificing animals to save humans.”

“I have better understood a part of science that I was unaware of, medical research. I have realized that it is a contradiction that we do not address. It is true that the level of animal deaths is derisory compared to that of animals that die for consumption. I think it’s an interesting debate,” he reflected.

In his opinion, “it is very easy to be against experimentation for cosmetics or cleaning products, without a doubt, but why should research on cancer, or diabetes, or asthma or transplants stop evolving? I don’t know How many people would agree to give that up,” he added.

“I had never confronted myself with this question,” he continued, “and in this film I have.”