Checkpoint Zoo: Putin’s War on Animals

It was like Dunkirk for animals. There were 5,000 beasts, of nearly every variety, at the Ferman Ecopark, all of whom had to be evacuated after Putin’s invasion. Nobody was prepared to pack up their own lives and flee, but transporting the zoo’s entire population would even more challenging. Yet, finding a place to take them all would be even trickier. The resulting rescue mission was a logistical nightmare and a humanitarian imperative the surviving ecopark employees revisit in Joshua Zeman’s documentary, Checkpoint Zoo, which opens this Friday in theaters.

Initially, Oleksandr Feldman thought the ecopark’s location outside Kharkiv, near the Russian border, was a perfect location. That was before Putin launched his war. Conceived as a combination wildlife shelter, zoo, animal rehabilitation center (both wild and domestic), and therapy animal clinic, the ecopark was home for wide variety of species. Unfortunately, it landed right in the middle of no man’s land during the Battle of Kharkiv, just beyond the final Ukrainian government checkpoint (hence the title), where it endured artillery barrages from both side that fell short.

It was several days before staffers could return to feed and water the animals, but some habitats remained too dangerous to reach. The animals grew hungrier, which made the predators dangerous.

Anyone with an ounce of compassion for God’s creatures will be deeply disturbed and angered by animal suffering documented in Checkpoint. The sight of the emaciated and trembling moose is especially shocking. However, it is important to remember there is only one man to blame for their condition: Vladimir Putin.

Indeed, the film makes this point several times, even when the starving and terrified big cats lash out at their frustrated care-givers. Of course, the Russians did their best to make a bad situation worse, launching mortars at the ecopark whenever their drones spotted multiple vehicles at the Feldman facilities. Zeman and the sound design team also viscerally convey a sense of how the sounds of war terrify and disorient the animals, because of their heightened auditory senses.

Although Checkpoint is not an embedded combat documentary, the ecopark was literally in the middle of a war zone, so the crew faced real dangers. In fact, the cameras were shooting during moments of horrific tragedy. Frankly, this is probably the most harrowing nonfiction film since Mstyslav’s 20 Days in Mariupol. (Although it covers similar subject matter as did Nature’s “Saving the Animals of Ukraine,” which was also an excellent production, there is little overlap between the two films.)

The courage and sacrifice of the Feldman animal keepers is inspiring. Yet, despite their success rate safely placing animals in new homes, the film ends on a bittersweet note that is probably more bitter than sweet. Regardless, if measured frame by frame, Checkpoint Zoo will easily be one of the most powerful films of the year. Very highly recommended, it opens this Friday (8/15) in New York, at the Quad.