A little monkey named Gandhi lives in a laboratory with his "mother", the subject of a series of "Monkey Love Experiments”. From his cage, Gandhi watches a new space adventure - the moon landing - unfold on the television, believing he will soon make own journey into space.
The heatbreaking stop-motion animation was inspired Harry Harlow's real experiments on rhesus monkeys in the 1960s which sought to discover if animals felt love for their mothers.
Genre: Drama
Country of Origin: UK
Medium/Content: Sound, Fiction, No Dialogue, Black and White, Mixed Media
Clip Length: 08:40
Age Group: S1-S3
Before you watch, what does the title tell you about this short film? What do you think it will be about?
Listen to the first 21 seconds of the film without the image. Can you tell what is happening? What clues do you get?
Watch up to 00:45 seconds. Where is the film set? What details help you to figure this out?
Immediately after we see this programme, what type of camera shot is used? Why? At this point, music also kicks in. What is the music telling us to feel?
Can you explain what happens at the end of the film? Do you think this is a satisfactory ending?
Why do you think the filmmakers chose a mixture of live action and animation to tell this story?
* Have a go at making your own Gandhi the monkey using Play-Doh, Plasticine or other craft materials. Use your model to do a stop motion sequence of something which happens in the film.
* Imagine if Gandhi the monkey actually went out into space like we see him pretending to do as he watches it on television. Make a storyboard of 8-10 frames showing how this story would happen.
Genre: Drama
Country of Origin: UK
Medium/Content: Sound, Fiction, No Dialogue, Black and White, Mixed Media
Clip Length: 08:40
Education Level: Third & Fourth Level
