A heart-wrenching short film produced by Humane Society International has been released in a bid to stop animal testing.
The film, “Save Ralph” premiered on YouTube on Tuesday, April 6 and tells the story of Ralph, a bruised and battered bunny, who is being interviewed for a documentary as he goes through his daily routine as a “tester” in a lab.
So far the video has been watched more than 40 000 times.
The powerful stop-motion animation features Oscar winner Taika Waititi as the voice of Ralph as well as actor Zac Effron as Bobby.
The #SaveRalph campaign tackles the cruelty of animal testing in an original and unexpected way—using the story of one bunny to shine a light on the plight of countless rabbits and other animals in laboratories around the world.
Director, Spencer Susser, says while Ralph is animated, the miseries he endures in the short film are far from made up.
“It's so important that Ralph feels real because he represents countless real animals who suffer every day.
“One of my favourite things about stop-motion animation is that every frame is a choice.
“Sadly, animals don't have that choice but the magic of stop-motion gives us the tools to give Ralph a voice.
“We hope that audiences will be moved to get behind Humane Society International’s campaign to ban animal testing of cosmetics once and for all,” said Susser.
The film is also being launched in Portuguese, Spanish, French and Vietnamese.
Comments came flooding in, in support of the message.
“Taika's voice fits the character so well. The animation was pretty great too, I loved the small and subtle movements during him brushing his teeth. Felt bad for the rabbit,” said Destron Laserwave.
David Bernazani said: “Well done. Thanks for making this thought-provoking reminder that we humans still have a long way to go towards treating other sentient beings ’humanely’ (I put that last word in quotation marks because I’m not sure we deserve it).“