“To witness the impact of pollution and to just see this river, the soil, and to see even the wildlife around it affected … I had a really, really strong emotional reaction to that, deep inside,” Cappelli tells us. “It pained me as if it was hurting a person … a human being or an animal.”
When editing SLAY, Cappelli made the choice not to include footage of animals being slaughtered or skinned, so as not to scare people away from watching the film. And during some more disturbing scenes, such as one in which a raccoon is being drowned, the team chose not to show things fullscreen, to create “a little bit of distance” for viewers, explains Cappelli.