Product Details

• Actors: Producer James LaVeck
• Directors: Jenny Stein
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: Tribe of Heart
• DVD Release Date: February 28, 2004
• Run Time: 77 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00024ONDE
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #132,997 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Los Angeles Times, December 8, 2000

The Witness...may be the most important and persuasive film about animals ever made.

--Howard Rosenberg, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic

American Library Association’s Booklist, June, 2001

Effective and never oversensationalized, this thought-provoking production will move both adult and teen viewers.

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Most Important Films I Have Ever Seen., October 25, 2005

By 

Zoe Hardy - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Witness: A Tribe of Heart Documentary (DVD)

There are other reviews of this film on the VHS version's page. They are not on the DVD version's page, for some reason. If you want to read those reviews, you can look up the VHS version of The Witness here on Amazon and read them.

Anyway, the film is about how a former self-centered "tough guy" from a violent Brooklyn neighborhood straightened out his life and began dedicating his life to helping people, and, later, animals as well.

This remarkable film, ostensibly about animals, is really about transcendence, redemption, and, at it's core, the discovery and understanding of love, as well as how one person can make a difference... please buy it and show it to everyone you can.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Witness--Life altering drama, November 1, 2001

By 

Chris Anderlik (Liberty Lake, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Witness: A Tribe of Heart Documentary [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The first time through you are impressed with the uniqueness of this video. The second time the emotional thrust takes you over completely. The first hand testimony of a hardened, near criminal human being transformed by his association with a nonhuman animal and the tracing of a life turned around completely is at the same time heart rending and exciting.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Witness, February 28, 2006

By 

Tammy - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Witness: A Tribe of Heart Documentary (DVD)

Eddie Lama, the subject of this documentary, is a middle-aged concrete and aluminum contractor who grew up on the tough streets of Brooklyn. As a child he never had a pet; his parents taught him that animals are dirty. His attitudes changed when he reluctantly agreed to take care of a pretty woman's kitten, hoping to get a date. His heart went out to the animal and nothing in his life would ever be the same again. Eddie began to rescue cats from the street. Mo Mo, one of these, compelled him to give up a two-pack-a-day cigarette habit when he noticed how small the animals' lungs must be and how it couldn't escape his secondhand smoke.

But it was the viewing of several undercover films about the trapping and cruel treatment of animals in the fur industry that convinced Eddie to begin a crusade to educate the public about this travesty. He equipped a van with a television monitor and drove through the streets of New York while playing videos of animals in traps and being caged and killed in fur farms. The pictures of pedestrians reacting to the torture and torment of animals are quite moving. Eddie Lama also founded Oasis, a sanctuary for unwanted and abandoned animals, that also is a shelter for homeless people.

Let The Witness from filmmakers James LaVeck and Jenny Stein open your heart. It is easily the most touching and best film I have every seen.