We created Creature Discomforts: Life in Lockdown, which plays on the much-loved Creature Comforts construct and uses real interviews of people’s experiences of temporary lockdown to tell stories of wild animals forced to live under lock and key for life in zoos, circuses and dolphinaria.
In the film we see caged wild animals in awful conditions talking to camera about their experience of captivity. It’s made to feel as real as possible with both sad and funny moments. The twist is that the voices are actually genuine unscripted interviews with people during lockdown. The way the voices marry up so well with the visuals makes you believe that this is what these animals must feel. But the real gut-wrench is at the end when you realise that they have to live like this forever, whilst humans are allowed back out once more.
Cultural / Context information for the jury
During the peak of lockdown in the UK, most people experienced being locked up against their will for the very first time. We wanted to use that experience to make people feel empathy towards millions of wild animals in captivity. The idea that underpinned everything we did was that our lockdown was always going to be temporary, but for some wild animals this terrible situation was forever.