When the documentary filmmaker Motoharu Iida was asked by an animal-loving elderly woman to make a film to save the lives of abandoned cats and dogs, he was not sure what he could do.
But with a little research, Iida soon found that 353,098 cats and dogs were disposed of — killed, that is — by local authorities in Japan in fiscal 2006. To his horror, he realized that meant almost 1,000 dogs and cats a day were being put to death.
"I was shocked, and decided to make that issue the theme of the film," Iida told The Japan Times recently.