Project Nim

Documentary about a chimp named Nim Chimpsky - put into a Manhattan family home in 1973 by a behavioural psychologist who set about testing Noam Chomsky's thesis that language is peculiar to humans. Could a non-human animal learn sign-language? From the director of Oscar-winning Man on Wire.

"After his early years with a quintessential, self-described ‘rich hippy’ Upper West Side family, Nim is transplanted to a university-owned upstate mansion. The chimp’s development and education is complicated throughout by romantic upheavals between the psychologist, Herbert Terrace, and his ‘researchers’ – and between the researchers themselves. For all its ebullience, enchantment and at times sheer cuteness, this is not one for children. What begins as an intriguing account of an unusual experiment shifts imperceptibly, and without a moment of moralism or hyperbole, into a story of almost Euripidean proportions – of trust and betrayal, of vengeance and redemption." (Source: NZ International Film Festival 2011)

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