Sunday Short Theatre : Stray In Kars (2022)

Elizabeth Lo‘s delightful documentary Stray in 2020. A dogumentary that followed stray bitch Zeytin as she shines a light on the neglected refugee community of Istanbul. This week’s Sunday Short Theatre, Stray In Kars that reflects another dog community in the opposite side of Turkey.

This short film is also directed by Lo, a 9 minute film that was shot at the same time as Stray. Street dogs in the ancient city of Kars roam free, fight and and occasionally in the humans’ call to prayer. Once again this short compliments the feature length and if you are dog, Turkey will be country for you!

Related Post: Film Review – Stray (2020)

What the ancient city of Kars looks like from the perspective of its stray dogs Made possible by a nationwide ‘no kill, no capture’ law protecting stray animals, Turkey’s stray dogs live in a sort of semi-harmony with people, their parallel societies often peaceably overlapping and intertwining. This is most pronounced in Istanbul, where government and community organisations have developed a sophisticated infrastructure for humane treatment of the city’s hundreds of thousands of street dogs. Their freewheeling lives were the subject of Stray (2020), a critically acclaimed feature-length documentary by Elizabeth Lo, a Hong Kong-born filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Shot in coordination with Stray, this short documentary takes viewers to the other side of the country, where strays in the ancient city of Kars roam, fight and and are occasionally interrupted by their human neighbours. Following a group of dogs as they wander in and out of Muslim rituals at a nearby mosque – and occasionally bark alongside its calls to prayer – Lo’s observational short provides a unique view of the human and canine worlds alike.
Source: Aeon