DVD REVIEW: JILL’S STORY

By Chris Underload

This DVD is a hard hitting and touching film about Jill Phipps who was crushed under the wheels of a truck that was carrying baby calves towards Coventry Airport on the 1st of Feburary 1995. Her tragic death bought a massive amount of anger and focus around the issue of live exports not least of all in Australia. Thousands of people have protested against the practice of loading up ships (like the infamous Como Express) with sheep or calves and shipping them half way around the world to be butchered.

So much activism seems to be located in the abstract realm, writing letters to someone in a building far away who does not care what you say about issues they are indifferent to and have no experience of. It is easy to feel that as individuals we are powerless and incapable of making a difference, let alone actually going to the site of injustice and having an impact on cruel activities, whether they are hunting, exporting live animals to another country to be butchered or duck shooting.

But something that this film did for me to watch it, was to reassert the basic reality that as individuals, with our own brains and autonomy can make a difference. Not just make a difference but to actually go to the site of injustice and stand in the way, to start deconstructing the dialogue of powerlessness and use our bodies and voices to confront.

We have seen this in the activities on a worldwide scale of SHAC (Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty) as they go after the financial backers and logistics people of HLS. A handful of people going to faceless offices around the world and confronting the faces that facilitate injustice and cruelty.

Jill’s legacy lives on. This film is only a part of it. See it. Stories like this must be seen and shared. They are a part of our history and heritage that we are creating every day, from the ashes of the old order.

Claudette Vaughan’s Review: If Jill Phipps were alive today she would be so proud of her friend, John Curtin, who produced this excellent, moving portrayal of her through the medium of documentary.

From the first frame onwards, the music, the early footage of Jill growing up through her teens etc - this sensitive portrayal glances out how her life’s purpose shows the making of an activist in action, Nancy Phipps speaking and highlighting the love of a mother for her late daughter, how Jill reached womanhood and her tragic death. This DVD is a testament of her legacy which is alive and well today.

John Curtin told the Abolitionist recently that he has been travelling around England and some parts of Europe playing to interested parties and he’s received a great welcome. Meat eaters through to hardcore animal rights activists have left the showing applauding his work.

And we are in no doubt why. (Click here to read the John Curtain interview)

We’re trying to get John Curtin out to Australia as he is interested in travelling around and playing his doco “Jill’s Story” to animal activists here. If you would like to sponsor this project please call us on 0400 606 495 or email us at: info@abolitionist-online.com

We miss you Jill.