A wonder of sight and sound, Animus Animalis explores the complicated relationship between humans and animals, through life and death. Living things become something else entirely after their demise, and the film's opening shot alone—a deceased rodent, illuminated in time lapse—is something akin to a religious experience. How we look at animals and how they see us is the focus of this exquisite corpse. Throughout the film, animals bear witness to a series of oppositions: the horror and honour of dressing a deer, the sacrifice and sacrament of pelts at a church service, the beauty and butchery in a taxidermy workshop, the deification and destruction of set decoration in a diorama. The perpetual presence of animals, from beginning to end, highlights how humans imitate life, defy death and replace nature. Hunters, taxidermists, deer farmers and museum workers all demonstrate how we erase distinctions between reality and artificiality in order to control and stand apart from the natural world. Angie Driscoll