Capucine
Luis Nieto, 42 minutes, France/Japan
WHEN a capuchin monkey named Capucine is given to a quadriplegic man as a helper, it’s not long before people notice her passion for TV and cameras. In Luis Nieto’s documentary, we watch as a Japanese primatologist and film lover, Hirokazu Shibuya, hears of Capucine and brings her to a research centre in Japan that serves as a kind of film school for primates.
This is where things grow increasingly odd. At the centre we see capuchins, chimps and other primates sport headphones and carry boom microphones and clapperboards. A group of chimps swing…
