After buying an abandoned livestock farm in Nova Scotia, Jason Young made a vow: “If I was going to continue eating animals, I was going to raise them myself.” So begins the struggles of a fledging farmer with his livestock, his livelihood, and his conscience.
“I wanted to give my animals the best life I could as a balance for their inevitable end.” Jason buys, names, and bonds with an entire menagerie: Ellie the ewe. Alfalfa the goat. Gretchen the rabbit. And his favorite -- JB the calf. “He is food, you know,” warns a neighbor, “not a pet.”
For his first slaughter, Jason fences a small clearing and dubs it the Sanctuary. Neighbors show him how to kill a rabbit, a sheep, a pig. “Animals eat other animals,” concedes Jason. “I was beginning to accept our position at the top of the food chain.” Yet even as he learns to ride Jessie the mare, “All I could think about was the leather reins, and the leather saddle – products made from the skins of other animals.”
Inevitably, the time comes for his favorite: “Nobody keeps a full-grown steer as a pet.” Alone with JB in the Sanctuary, Jason has a life-changing epiphany. But whose life is changed?
This quiet yet powerful film takes us to the very heart of the animal-human relationship, with all its contradictions.
Filmed with striking beauty in the rolling Canadian countryside, filmmaker Jason Young explores raising and butchering farm animals as an open-ended question, "Friend or food?"
