The Producers
Daniel Meyers - Director
Born in California, Daniel moved to Paris in 1996 where he has been working on international documentaries for US, British and French television in over 70 countries around the world. His work as a director, cameraman, producer and editor has received many awards, including an RTS Award for Best Arts Documentary (BBC, on Vivian Maier), a Grierson award for Best Arts Documentary (BBC, on Salman Rushdie), a BAFTA nomination for IRAQ Reckoning (C4 Dispatches), Grand prize and best documentary, New Orleans Film Festival (The Allan Toussaint Touch) and a 1993 Academy Award nomination for When Abortion Was Illegal.
Making The Film
Director's Statement
Set in two locations, the film follows a year in the life of a pack of sheep dogs in the high mountains of Sardinia, Italy, where sheep herding has existed for thousands of years, and follows the difficult life of street dogs in Bucharest Romania. With astonishing intimacy, we witness first-hand the struggles for dominance, the politics of the pack and the cycle of life and death. In these two starkly different locations, we see the resilience of this magnificent animal we are so close to but rarely see in such a naturalistic way. But as much as this is a documentary about dogs, it’s also a reflection on how we human beings see the natural world around us. Perhaps through better understanding this animal we are so close to we will also better appreciate the wild side of the natural world. - Daniel Meyers
Raw and never succumbing to sentimentality or anthropomorphism. There is no music track to manipulate your feelings, instead only natural sounds recorded on location giving you a real sense of where you are. When the human characters speak, what they say is not translated or subtitled, allowing the viewers to observe how the dogs relate to human beings through understanding our gesture and tone rather than words. From the sheep dogs of Sardinia, to the strays fighting for survival on the streets of Bucharest, a filmmaker immerses himself in the daily lives of dogs
