Brean Cunningham and Douglas Seirup already knew they wanted to make a documentary about the connection between humans and animals when they came across Don’t Throw Us Away. The nonprofit organization that teaches prison inmates to train and rehabilitate abandoned rescue dogs proved to be a perfect platform off which to tell that story.
Cunningham and Seirup went to a Massachusetts prison with cameras and crew to film the developing relationships between scared rescue dogs and the inmates who cared for them. Nearly five years later, their documentary Dogs on the Inside is set to release on Feb. 10, less than a year after it premiered in film festivals across the U.S.
Mashable spoke with Cunningham, Seirup and former inmate and caretaker Candido Santiago about capturing the bond between people and animals.
How did you learn about the Don’t Throw Us Away program and what inspired you to center your film on it?
Douglas: We love dogs is what it really came down to. We were looking a positive story to tell and when we came across Don’t Throw Us Away, we were just really moved by it. Hadn’t seen anything like it before, it was just such an innovative concept to have these dogs being rehabilitated by inmates.
So, we dug a little further into it — what their mission is, and what they’re all about — and thought, “What better way to show this than to capture this on film?”
How long was the filming process?
Brean: As far as filming at the prison, they gave us three days and so we needed to make the most out of that. [The filming] kind of developed and grew as we continued to edit and we knew that there were other elements to introduce, such as going down to Mississippi to get a back story on where these dogs came from to really show people that what was happening at the jail was remarkable and that that was the safe haven for these dogs.
Inmates like Candido were giving dogs asylum, and giving them love and care, which they were not getting in their earlier lives. So we went and saw more of that and it took us three years all together, with filming and editing and producing the whole film.
What was it like to watch the inmates with the dogs and how they mutually benefitted one another?
Douglas: Well it was one of the most challenging aspects only having three days to film, but … we spread those three days out over the course of three months and that way we were able to capture the transformation in each of the dogs and all the inmates.
To begin this process, we went up without cameras to introduce ourselves to each of the inmates and tried to establish some type of trust with them, knowing that we would have a camera [and would be] asking them questions about the dogs and about their lives. We weren’t intimidated at all, we felt really comfortable there. The bond that was created between the inmates and the dogs was tangible. You could feel the amount of love that each of these inmates could provide the dogs.
Candido Santiago embraces one of the dogs in his care.
Image: Dogs on the Inside
Candido, you really seemed to connect with the program in a really big way. Would you talk about how you benefited from caring for an abused dog?
Candido: I benefitted from it in so many different levels. Mentally, in that aspect, I thought of it like, “I finally have a companion, I have someone I can talk to.” Emotionally, it made me happy, and it made me so joyous to have something that I can love, kiss, caress, talk to, spend time with. It was so much fun, and in the physical level, I got to run. I got to jog with them. It hit all different levels.
I think that when you first get the dog, they normally tell you their backgrounds and what they went through. In a lot of aspects, I could relate to every single dog that went through the prison system.
How many different dogs did you care for?
Candido: I trained six of them in the year and a half that I was there. We used to switch off though, because we would get a dog for maybe two to three months, and then have them adopted. That was the main goal — to get them sociable with human beings, get them trained as well and get them adopted. It was bittersweet though.
What was the most rewarding aspect of caring for these dogs?
Candido: It was rewarding because they were going somewhere better. They were being paroled out of prison before I was.
Brean and Doug, I read in the director’s statement that you wanted to tell a story about the universal connection between humans and animals. What did working with Don’t Throw Us Away teach you about the human-animal connection that you previously hadn’t considered?
Brean: I guess it confirms what we suspected. I really think there’s a kind of ineffable magic about it. A picture’s worth a thousand words and I don’t really think we could do it justice by writing about it. So what we saw actually exceeded our expectations because we met someone like Candido … and we were blown away by how much love there was so quickly.
I think by seeing this film, you see it through an inmate’s eyes. And Candido was almost like the narrator, he grounds the film throughout. You kind of see what dogs brought to his life.
Image: Dogs on the Inside
If people take one thing away from your documentary, what do you want them to take away from it?
Douglas: If there’s one thing, we want people to continue the conversation of dog rescue. We want people to be inspired when they see this film. I think it’s clear that what you can take away from this film is that you can believe in people whether they’re inmates or not, you can believe in giving someone a second chance.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Dogs on the Inside is available to stream starting Feb. 10 on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Instant Video, VUDU and dogsontheinside.com.
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