“I cover a lot of different subjects, but I always try to represent the truth,” says London-based documentary filmmaker Rani Khanna, who’s tackled topics as diverse as they are intriguing, including the book markets of Calcutta and the music of film composer Gabriel Yared of The English Patient fame. She first covered dogs in 2008, when she trained her camera on dogs and the people who love them for a short film.
Since undergoing that crash course in canine culture, she’s now returning to our favorite subject for an in-depth, feature-length investigation. Khanna’s new documentary is titled Oh My Dog!, and it’s seeking crowdfunding right now on Kickstarter, so she can film for four weeks in New York City. The film will be about doggy culture in NYC, and “what it reveals about the human condition.”
It’s not every day we hear of a documentary that incorporates an original rap score and combines live action with animation. Cartoon canine Gus the dog is the film’s narrator, a four-footed philosopher whose words of whiskered wisdom will be voiced by a well-known actor. (Khanna invites you to suggest whose voice we’d most like to hear.)
As you can tell, Oh My Dog! isn’t your everyday dog movie — it’s a dogumentary, and it promises to be thoughtful, stylish, and fun. I can’t wait to see it.
But none of us will get to see this film if Khanna can’t raise the funds to make it. With just 13 days to go on her Kickstarter campaign, Khanna is hoping dog lovers around the world will rally around Oh My Dog! in time for it to reach its funding goal.
Check out some of the fetching backer rewards (one of which is the opportunity to have the filmmaker’s architect sister custom-design a dog-friendly space in your home).
Follow the campaign’s progress on Facebook and please leave suggestions for the voice of Gus in the comments!
