Katie Cleary is the founder and President of Peace for Animals, a charity aimed at helping to end animal suffering around the globe. This past weekend she and her best friend, Kristin Rizzo, won Best Documentary Short for their film “Give Me Shelter” at the Los Angeles Cinema Festival of Hollywood. The trailer for the film was submitted and subsequently received the award.

The production in collaboration with INRI Pictures was produced by Katie Cleary and directed by Kristin Rizzo. Cinematographers, Edd Lukas and Kristina Schulte-Eversum also worked on the film project. The whole team is now working on post-production and editing the feature length film which will be coming out in May 2013.

The intent of the production was to bring to the attention of the general population, a deeply moving piece chronicling various aspects of human-domestic animal/wildlife conflict and to raise awareness for important animal abuse and neglect issues around the world.

The movie provides a much needed perspective on the work that many different individuals and animal organizations do on a daily basis trying to deal with the disposal attitude of hundreds of thousands of animals in the U.S and globally. Topics featured in the documentary include the the underground trade in wild and exotic animals, puppy mills, poaching, animal abuse and neglect, among other aspects of negative human-animal interactions that plague societies around the globe.