Stray

Elizabeth Lo's 2021 documentary follows dogs living on the streets of Istanbul. The camera stays almost entirely at ground level, trailing three dogs named Zeytin, Nazar and Kartal and showing the city from their height. The regulation in Turkey that forbids culling street dogs is the film's ground. Because of it the dogs live permanently outdoors and count as part of the city; the documentary records this as an everyday condition rather than a policy debate. The dogs' path crosses that of young Syrian refugees, and the film gains a second layer there. Both are without shelter and neither is fully claimed by the city; Lo builds the parallel without stating it. Who it's for: those who like observational documentary and animal-perspective narratives. Who it's not for: viewers expecting an informative documentary; the film explains almost nothing.