Your Mommy Kills Animals came about when filmmaker Curt Johnson had spoken to a good friend in 2003 about the animal rights movement. Not knowing much except for the People for Ethical Treatment (PETA) ad campaigns, Johnson had no idea what would lie in store for him when he began the controversial Your Mommy Kills Animals in 2006. His friend had been a very active part of PETA and gave him quite a bit of background on their work.
Another film project started for Johnson so he let the animal rights idea stew around and develop further until 2005 when he saw a news story on CNN stating that the FBI had just declared that one of the top domestic terrorist threats to the United States were animal rights activists. Never expecting that the ‘bunny huggers’ would fall under this group, Johnson immediately knew the time was perfect for his documentary.
Not knowing much about the movement except what his friend in Austin, Texas had told him about PETA, Curt Johnson went about sending emails out to the Environmental Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) requesting interviews. ”I had no idea that this wasn’t the way to do this since these groups were under so much scrutiny, they had no idea who I was and why I was suddenly asking for interviews for a documentary. I think my being so naive on the subject really helped since they wound up helping me get the best interviews for my film.” I suddenly got a phone call from a woman who basically was checking me out to see if I was legitimate and not just another person trying to do a smear piece on the animal rights movement. Johnson was very upfront about his intentions and never varied from what he promised which was that he would make as balanced and objective a film that he could possibly make since he knew that by covering both sides of the controversial movement would wind up having someone complain. ”That’s just human nature,” Johnson said, ” someone will always complain about something and usually it’s because they don’t feel like they got enough face time. I had a couple people try to sabotage the film in an attempt to take it over but that didn’t happen,” he says proudly.
So in January 2006, Johnson went off around the United States 2 1/2 times with his camera crew attempting to get interviews from people and groups on both sides of the movement. The project began in San Francisco and worked it’s way up to Portland, Oregon where the Your Mommy Kills Animals crew lucked out in getting interviews with 2 of the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC7) convicted activist Josh Harper and Kevin Kjjonas. It was there that Johnson realized just how much scrutiny the movement was under when he was approached several times by undercover FBI officers at a fundraiser he was shooting for his movie Your Mommy Kills Animals.
