Project NIM: Or How Not To Treat Our Closest Known (Or Unknown) Living Relatives

Project NIM

No matter how close our DNA, they are not we, and we are not they.....        - Nadia Moore

I have not yet had a chance to watch this film in it's entirety myself, but from everything I have read, viewed and discussed with those who have, I think it serves as a chilling example of the arrogance of humankind when it comes to the other creatures sharing our planet.  Yes we are all fascinated by finding out what Sasquatch are, how they think, how they are like us and how they are different, but I hope no one's curiosity, especially in the name of science, puts a Bigfoot in this kind of situation, ever, even with the best of intentions. This failed attempt at raising an infant Chimpanzee as a human proved that he was incapable of adapting to the ways of the humans around him, and subjected him to years of physical and psychological mistreatment.

"From the Oscar-winning team behind MAN ON WIRE comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim's extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. What we learn about his true nature - and indeed our own - is comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling." 

"Project Nim" Trailer One: Researcher's Perspective

 IN THE CAN: Project Nim - Director James Marsh:

"Project Nim" Trailer Two:  Film Maker's Prespective

Other "Project Nim" Videos:  Facebook Video's

REVIEWS: 

  "The premise of the experiment was to treat him as much like a human child as possible and to give him the nurturing of a human child in order [to see if] he would behave like one," Marsh says. "And it was quite striking that there wasn't an investigation into what chimpanzees actually were or what they're like. And the wild animal comes out in him very quickly, and [no one] was prepared for that."  

     -  NPR  'Project Nim': A Chimp's Very Human, Very Sad Life

 "Watching, I couldn't help but think of HBO's "Cinema Verite," a scripted drama about public television's 1970s "reality" series "An American Family."  Like that film, "Project Nim" is as much a story about the times in which Nim and his keepers lived as it is about the chimp they used to ask questions whose answers were probably always going to be more about themselves than they were about Nim."   

    - Ellen Gray  'Project Nim': Bad experiment goes awry

"Nim is as unforgettable as the treatment of him is unspeakable."

     - Carrie Rickey   Reviews at "Rotten Tomatoes"

Sponsor A Chimp Here!

AND SOME GREAT NEWS TODAY:  

"Chimp Haven stands ready to discuss the possibility of retiring hundreds of federally-owned chimpanzees with the National Institutes of Health, following expert recommendations yesterday by the agency’s Council of Councils Working Group. The Council unanimously voted on limiting the future use of chimpanzees in biomedical and behavioral research and placing hundreds of chimpanzees in The National Chimpanzee Sanctuary- known as Chimp Haven."

You can sponsor a Chimp for as little as $25.00.  They will need donations to help house the hundreds of new residents coming their way:  You Can Donate to Chimp Haven Here 

And another way you can help out our Chimpanzee Cousins is by supporting the great work being done by the Jane Goodall Institute!

http://www.janegoodall.org/chimpanzees

Jane Goodall, Groundbreaking Researcher