The Big Grey Film

Australia has the largest greyhound racing industry in the world, but has come under increasing public scrutiny over animal welfare concerns, which has lead to government inquiries and even a statewide ban.

This debate has lead to a heated cultural divide. On one side are the trainers and punters who see the sport as their livelihood and an enjoyable activity for their dogs. On the other, animal welfare advocates, with concerns over the danger of the sport.

This documentary will not only conduct an unprecedented, journalistic exploration into these topics, but also air voices from both sides of the track, without judgement, in order to gain a deeper understanding of the stakes for the humans and dogs involved.

Australia has an average of 1.3 dogs per household and 87 percent of Australians strongly believe that animals should be protected by animal welfare legislation. Despite this, dogs within the Australian greyhound racing industry are not protected by the same animal welfare laws as other pets. This has lead to the ongoing animal welfare concerns reported by the media. The aim of this film is to gain a deeper understanding of these concerns from all industry stakeholders, and promote transparency and wellbeing for the animals and humans involved.

While dogs are our best friends, greyhounds are often misunderstood or misrepresented in cultural and legislative discourse. The ultimate goal of the film is to help its audience understanding this truly enigmatic breed and the unique challenges it faces, as well as to promote positive discussions and transparency surrounding men’s mental health. The film aims to explore it’s themes using an unbiased, journalistic approach.

Our hope is that, by allowing the audience to meet on common ground, a love for dogs, and highlighting the complex cultural issues that surround the greyhound racing industry, they will be able to reflect objectively on these issues and a changing society, and seek mutual resolutions.

Significant access and expressions of interest have been gained into the industry, audiences and collaborators involved in this film’s story, throughout the production of my short film about greyhounds and pre-production for this film.

Australian media personalities, greyhound trainers and official industry spokespeople, politicians, greyhound foster carers, advocacy groups and rescue organisations, as well as industry insiders.

This includes access to current industry operations, parliamentary findings and regulations, vast libraries of archival footage and a journalistic range of interviews.

This film will promote calls and actionable solutions for positive cultural, legislative and operational reforms, to benefit animals and the public:
– It will ask the public to foster/adopt one of the thousands of greyhounds discarded by the industry every year, call on the industry and government for reform, and support greyhound advocacy organisations.
– It will call on the government to reduce the harm caused to animals by improving industry transparency and regulation, and reduce the harm to the public by exploring non-taxpayer funding options and reforms to online gambling.