Straying home. A film essay with urban animals

Straying home

a film essay with urban animals

"Straying Home is an extraordinary journey among the non-human presences in the environments we consider “ours.” A view literally from below, which decolonizes our gaze on stray and liminal animals, pushing us to practice multispecies conviviality."

Marco Reggio - Activist & Author of "Cospirazione animale"

"Straying Home offers an important contribution to critical animal studies and urban political ecology. It traces how colonial and capitalist histories shape the categories of ‘pest’, ‘stray’, and ‘pet’, revealing them as political constructions rather than natural facts."

Leila Dehghan - Doctor & Activist

"Eloquent and keenly observed, this film makes us rethink who belongs in the city and what it means to live well alongside our animal cohabitants."

Krithika Srinivasan - Researcher & Professor of Political Ecology

"Straying Home is a beautiful film about the complexity of urban living for animals. It seamlessly blends scholarship, art, and video to raise questions about how animals live in cities."

Claudin Towne Hirtenfelder - Researcher & Host at The Animal Turn podcast

"I loved this on every level"

Emilia Leese - Podcast Host & Auhtor of "Think like a Vegan"

Synopsis: Non-human animals have always been around us, shaping and being shaped by our shared worlds. Yet in the modern city, their presence is increasingly cast as a problem, and their ways of living as disruptions. By following their traces, this film essay points toward a different picture that questions the narratives we take for granted. Through more-than-human encounters filmed locally in Romania, and a critical detour from the official discourse, other ways of living begin to surface. Perhaps there’s more we can do to unmake the anthropocentric landscape. What would it take to coexist more justly with urban animals? This film strays with this question and its possible answers.

Length: 1 hour and 2 minutes

Country of origin: Romania

Straying home. A film essay with urban animals - Still photo from film

Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Writer, and Narrator - Aron Nor
Art Director, Illustrator, and Rotoscoping Animator - Mina Mimosa
Lyrics Writer and Script Editor - M. Martelli
Song Composer and Singer - Teo Retegan
End Credits Music - Organic Shelter by Andrea Penso / Invisibilia editions

This film includes other musical fragments from Andrea Penso’s compositions, to whom we’re very thankful. The other music and SFX used were acquired from Envato. Background sounds were recorded during the filming process.

Produced by just wondering…
Supported by NWO (Dutch Science Council) & individual Patreon donors.

Text & Bibliography

Acknowledgements

We are incredibly grateful to Eva Meijer for sharing with us their manuscripts and (now published) work in progress, on which this film is based in part, and for inviting us to create something for “The politics of (not) eating animals” project. As part of it, this film received financial support from the NWO (Dutch Science Council). For more information about Eva Meijer’s project “The politics of (not) eating animals”.

Gratitude runs deep in our hearts for your friendship, inspiration, and support, without which this film would not have been possible.

This film also incorporates ideas from the work in progress of Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, as well as from Claudia Towne Hirtenfelder’s dissertation, to whom Aron and all of us are very thankful. Other reflections come from Aron's ongoing research with street dogs, some of which have also found a home in a book collaboration with Eva Meijer called "Straying with street dogs". Aron is also very thankful to all the non-human animals who have shared their time with him while filming and all the other researchers and activists whose ideas and knowledge helped him, directly or indirectly, think differently about urban animals and street dogs. Many thanks to Davide Majocchi for his friendship and his motto “we are all strays”, which has been a guiding source of inspiration. Special thanks also go to Lăbuș for being the best neighbour one can wish for!

Last but not least, we would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to all our patreons who silently and patiently continue to finance and support the production process of our video essays every month (even when there’s no video out yet), and without which our work would be harder, if not impossible to realize.

Screening Information

“Straying home. A film essay with urban animals” can be screened freely in any location or classroom, and at any event that is not for profit, given proper credit.

If you wish to screen it and do not have a good internet connection, please send us an email at contact@justwondering.io and we will send you the file for download, together with the subtitles we currently have.

If you do screen it and have a discussion, we’d love to hear about it!