All Those Who Wander Aren't Lost w/ Elizabeth Lo

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Dogs Play An Independent Role With People In The Community of Istanbul

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About The Episode

Elizabeth Lo was obsessed with dogs since she was young. As a kid, she begged her family for one every year until they relented and got her Mikey, a Shetland Sheepdog. He turned out to be even more important to her than Elizabeth would realize.

When Mikey passed away, he was at home with her family in Hong Kong while she was away at college in the U.S. She never got to say goodbye. But as much as it hurt, Elizabeth also found herself suppressing her grief to a degree - later realizing because of society’s dictating that a dog's death is not the same as a human one. Down the road, she realized how much it had affected her.

While thinking about the view of dogs in our societies, and with her filmmaking background, Elizabeth started thinking about making a cultural study documentary project that looked at this across the world. However, when she learned about the history of Istanbul and dogs, her focus tightened.

Stray dogs were chased out of Istanbul dating back to incidents in the Ottoman Empire, and then throughout the past century since 1909 as the Turkish authorities tried to modernize and Westernize the country. However, the residents of the country fought back for the rights of the dogs and eventually prevailed. Turkey is now one of the only countries where it is illegal to euthanize or hold captive any stray dog.

Elizabeth was struck by that story and the country’s canine relationship, which made her question the humane way we should actually be living with dogs. She went to the country herself, initially to scout it out and later to film over several years, and saw that the strays have relationships throughout the city with tons of people, are always being fed, and are fully individualized. Not only is it not negative, it actually enriches the community. It transformed her thoughts on the dog-human bond and now actually thinks we’re missing out in the West and we should embrace the same idea.

The film itself, Stray, follows three dogs, Zeytin, Nazar, and Kartal – with Zeytin as the main character, a dog with an amazing sense of independence and personality. Elizabeth filmed it from their point of view to allow viewers to imagine life from a dog’s perspective. Filming over 160 days of footage over three years from 2017 to 2019, she built close bonds with these dogs. There were also more layers of their connection that unraveled when editing, too, such as the fact that Zeytin would often reflect Elizabeth’s emotions and desires without her even realizing it at that moment. It was an experience that’s changed her forever.

About The Guest - Elizabeth Lo

Elizabeth Lo is an award-winning nonfiction filmmaker born and raised in Hong Kong and a graduate of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. As a director, cinematographer and editor – she is interested in finding new, aesthetic ways of exploring the boundaries between species, class, and unequal states of personhood. Elizabeth’s work includes short films like Hotel 22, Treasure Island, and Mother’s Day. Her debut feature film, Stray, follows three stray dogs in Istanbul and explores how they live and interact without a singular owner but rather with a community of people who look out for them and build relationships across the city.

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InterviewJack SommerArt / Creativity, Travel