SENTIENT

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Some call them heroes. To others they are monsters. They work in a secret world of high security laboratories. And they know that they are hurting themselves in profound ways because of what they do.   ‘Sentient’ takes viewers behind locked doors into the world of those who experiment on animals, where monkeys are most highly prized of all. Here researchers say they love the animals they experiment on and ultimately kill. And many struggle with that “care-kill complex.”

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The numbers are staggering. In the US alone 40 thousand monkeys are used in laboratories each year. Most are imported from massive monkey breeding farms in Southeast Asia, a business worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  Our cameras were granted unprecedented access to one of the largest animal laboratories in the US, the University of Washington, Seattle and to the workers who are grappling with the consequences of what they do, openly discussing serious mental health challenges. 

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Sentient follows the life story of Dr Lisa Jones Engel, one of the most decorated scientists at the University of Washington’s famous primate centre. After decades of working with chimps and monkeys she had a moving epiphany that her life’s work was profoundly wrong. The film goes undercover to reveal what happens in the world’s drug testing laboratories, giving the film some of its most startling scenes. ‘Sentient’ is ultimately a meditation on the connections between us and the animals we use for research.