Warning: This riveting documentary could change the way you relate to animals and transform your lifestyle.
Eddie Lama is a middle-aged concrete and aluminum contractor who grew up on the tough streets of Brooklyn. As a child he never had a pet; his parents taught him that animals are dirty. His attitudes changed when he reluctantly agreed to take care of a girlfriend's kitten. His heart went out to the animal and nothing in his life would ever be the same again. Eddie began to rescue cats from the street. Mo Mo, one of these, compelled him to give up a two-pack-a-day cigarette habit when he noticed how small the animals' lungs must be and how it couldn't escape his secondhand smoke. Then while feeling the leg of Bagel, Eddie realized it was shaped just like a drumstick. He became a vegetarian.
But it was the viewing of several undercover films about the trapping and slaughtering of animals for their fur that convinced Eddie to begin a crusade to educate the public about this travesty. He created posters for the sides of his company trucks showing a fox, a skinned fox, and a model in a fox coat. Then he equipped a van with a television monitor and drove through the streets of New York while playing videos of animals in traps, caged at fur farms, and being killed in slaughterhouses. The pictures of pedestrians reacting to the torture and torment of animals are quite moving. Eddie Lama also founded Oasis, a sanctuary for unwanted and abandoned animals.
Let The Witness from filmmakers James LaVeck and Jenny Stein open your heart. Here's an anonymous prayer that seems tailor-made for this incredible documentary:
"Hear our humble prayer, O God, for our friends the animals, especially for animals who are suffering; for any that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry; for all that must be put to death. We entreat for them all Thy mercy and pity, and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands, and kindly words. Make us, ourselves, to be true friends to animals and so to share the blessing of the merciful."
For more information on a cruelty-free lifestyle and to purchase this video ($20), visit www.tribeofheart.org.