Heart of the Amazon: Upcoming film to feature the work of a Tennessee animal lover

“When was the last time you stood up and applauded a movie?”

That was the tag line for 1973’s “Walking Tall,” but it just may work out better for the new film, “Fixing Fido” where the work of a Memphis animal lover, big-hearted veterinarians and volunteers make for a compelling story on a yet-to-be-released documentary.

Molly Mednikow’s family has been known in Memphis since 1891 when her great uncle opened a jewelry business in the city. The store is still thriving and still in the family. Molly, a 1986 graduate of St. Mary’s High School, left Tennessee after graduation to study in Atlanta. After getting her MBA, she opened a Mednikow store there.

Growing up she had dogs and all were rescue dogs from shelters. Visiting the Amazon area of Peru’ she was saddened by the condition of street dogs. During one of her visits, she let two of the homeless dogs into her hotel. It inspired her to sell her business and in 2004 and to start Amazon Cares in the city of Iquitos, which provides care to people and their pets.

The director of the film, Jeremiah Alley, became interested in the topic of street dogs at Duke’s bar in Hawaii. “Me and my brother met Dr. Sheridan Harvey and she said she was going to Thailand, then India and then to Peru to help dogs,” Alley remembers. He became curious.

The Ohio native had done acting, was an Air Force veteran, a film student at Brooks Institute “and always in to photography. Documentaries to me are there to tell a story and really hone in on the subject,” he says. He discovered the plight of street dogs talking to Harvey and realized this would be an opportunity for a compelling story.

“Fifteen thousand years dogs have been around with people. You have seen a trend in the last ten years dogs have been treated like kings, but not in some parts of the world,” Alley says. “For about the last thirty to forty years we have had this major problem with over population.”

“I think the biggest thing with this documentary is it looks how the place of dogs have changed over time,” Alley says. “I am trying to see where we went wrong. Are we treating Fido like man’s best friend? He has been our best friend for a long time.  He has taken care of us. He has worked for us on the farm and in some parts of the world he is getting a raw deal. I want to shed light on those who are helping these animals through the veterinarian’s eyes who go down there.”

Alley is also working with producer Eliza Martin and cinematographer Bradley Stonesifer.  “We are planning on going a couple places because it is global issue on how man’s best friends are treated around the world.”

“A new thing coming up through vet school is they are talking about the concept of the   human-animal bond,” says Alley. “We have to take care of the bond between human and animals. It is about what we need from them and what they need from us.”

Mednikow also shows the animals help people too. She remembers a girl with Down ’s syndrome. “People often place the blame with the mother for falling under the spell of a pink dolphin from the Amazon and conceiving a child with the dolphin,” she says.

The family picked out a dog and named her Suzanne. “Two months after the adoption the family wrote us joyfully. They told us that their daughter’s speech and motor skills had improved dramatically since adopting Suzanne. She was throwing a ball with the dog, had started forming whole sentences and smiled every day!”

Alley got together a crew from film school and about one month after their conversation with Harvey, they were headed to Peru’.

“Iquitos is magical in the sense that is very third world. You can only get there by boat or plane,” says Alley. ”It is a very bustling city. I was amazed at the technology. You could get a camera there and people were watching satellite TV. But what is more relevant is the amount of feral dogs in Iquitos. Everywhere you look you see them on the streets and everywhere you look you see them in the worst possible conditions.”

It was here where he met Mednikow.  “Molly is taking care of a part of the world she has no responsibility for. I am fascinated by people who take care of things that they don’t own. That is a very selfless act,” Alley says.

The film crew also documented the veterinarians working in less than optimal conditions helping the animals. In addition the crew visited Amazon Cares’ facility in Cabo Lopez which is even more remote than Iquitos. “Here you have a shelter in the middle of the jungle and they also use that as a surgery site,” he says.

The crew followed Harvey from Honolulu, as well as Dr. Jeff Werber of Los Angeles and Dr. Beth McGennisken of Darwin, Australia as they temporarily traded their big city offices and temperate climates for tents and shelters in the jungle where seasons alternate between wet and dry.

The story itself is fascinating but this is to be a film, not just a broadcast on the evening news. And with the hope of a theatrical release they needed stunning visuals.

Previews of the movie show the amazing beauty of the sun setting over the Amazon. Not only is it a scenic river, but due to the rainfall in area it is the only route in and out of many communities.  The sense of a bustling port at Iquitos is captured through time-lapse motion photography as little boats scurry in and out of the port, far different from the giant towboat traffic seen along the Mississippi and the Tennessee Rivers. And to get a sense of the motorcycle rickshaws that fill the streets of Iquitos, a bit of creativity was used.

The Russian arm is a device used to suspend a camera from a moving vehicle to film another moving vehicle and give a sense of fluid motion without shaking the camera. You see them often in chase scenes. The devices run “a couple hundred thousand dollars,” Alley says. Plus they are much easier to come by in the US than in Iquitos.

“The second time we went to Iquitos, Brad and I had had the idea to mount a camera on to one of the motor carts. We wanted to portray these motor carts and how crazy they are whipping in and around traffic. We hired some welders to build this boom for the camera and we hired some policemen to stop traffic and the shot came out really well,” he remembers.  They even named their device “The Peruvian arm.”

More dramatic are some of the photos on Amazon Cares website showing dogs living on the street, skinny, weak and fur falling out. There are also photos of strong, healthy dogs. Look closer and you see those are the same dogs after weeks of care and better nutrition through Amazon Cares.

The film will also have a star, Andrew Keagan from the TV series “Party of Five” and “Seventh Heaven” plus the movies “Camp Nowhere” and “O.” “Andrew is a friend of mine and he is really passionate about the subject. He lent it his support and celebrity,” he says.

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Alley and his crew have taken three trips to document the work of Amazon Cares and to document  the changing roles of dogs in our world today. Does the movie have specific policy recommendations?

“All films have an impact. I would hope any film I make makes people to act. People think there is nothing you can do but in Italy the law says you can’t kill a dog in a shelter so they have to take care of them. Maybe that’s what we need to do. I know we kill way too many dogs,” he says.

“The more I think about it in places like Peru’ people have to take care of themselves,” he says. “As we talked to local people there is not a sense of the dogs not being the best friends. They might give them scraps of meat in the meat market but there is no real sense they are more than that they are there to comfort them. They are just not treated that way,” he says.

Though he sheds light on some sad conditions for dogs, Alley has kind words for the people he met in Peru. “The people there are wonderful. All the trips they have been in so far the people are great,” he says. “The younger generation appreciates dogs for more than just protection. They appreciate them for friendship and offering support. I think the new generation that is going to make a mark in history on the path of Fido.”

June 16 a sneak peak was held at the Parlor Hollywood in Los Angeles for the Siren’s Society. The crowd stood up and applauded the movie, but more accurately they applauded the work of a woman who followed her heart and touched a distant part of the world.