She designed a sanctuary for herself. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a modern masterpiece. E.1027 Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea
Streaming & DVD Launch September 9, 2025! Coming to Amazon, Apple & Kanopy
In 1929, Irish designer Eileen Gray created E.1027 on the sun-soaked Côte d’Azur – a bold and hidden gem of avant-garde architecture. This striking house was meant to be a personal refuge.
But when the legendary architect Le Corbusier stumbled upon it, fascination turned to obsession. He covered its walls with his murals, completely disregarding Gray’s wishes and her vision. His defiant act ignited a battle for creative control, with Gray demanding restitution for the destruction of her work. He ignored her wishes and instead built his famous Cabanon house directly behind E.1027.
E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House By the Sea is an unusual hybrid docu-fiction film that tells a story about the power of one woman’s creative expression and a man’s desire to control it.
“A unique and uniquely satisfying experience…a bold movie because it takes a deep dive on characters and a house that may not widely known, at least for American audiences. There is nothing quite like it.” – John Soltes, Hollywood Soapbox“ A story of passion, craft, and betrayal…aesthetically beautiful and a great summer watch.” – Fiona Rae, Film Threat “Shot on location at E.1027, this feature-documentary hybrid matches the sleekness of its setting – its serenity, its surface poetry, its fragments of grace.” – Barlo Perry, ParisLA “Eileen Gray was a creative genius and the first woman to conquer the world of architecture at a time when men controlled it all. This new film reflects on Gray’s impressive career and her stunning modernist house on the Cote d’Azur.” – Meredith Taylor, Finito World
“The directors put architecture in dialogue with cinema in order to bring to life the sensibility of a woman who was a visionary yet is too rarely celebrated. Elegant and well thought-out, the film uses the cinematic medium to enrich a discourse.” – Giorgia Del Don, Cineuropa
“Based on the memoirs of Eileen Gray, this meticulously crafted docu-drama, where poetry slips into frames, angles and tones, almost feels like a hallucination.”– Maroussia Dubreuil, Le Monde
A First Run Features / Architecture & Design Film Festival Release E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House By the Sea Written & Directed by Beatrice Minger Co-Directed by Christoph Schaub With Natalie Radmall-Quirke, Axel Moustache & Charles Morillon 90 minutes, color, 2024 | English & French w/English subtitles
Streaming & physical media disc Launch Date: September 9, 2025 Streaming Platforms: Amazon, Apple & Kanopy DVD SRP: $19.95 usd| DVD UPC: 7-20229-91843-5
For the Silo, Kelly Hargraves/ First Run Features.
NIAGRA FALLS, Ontario (June, 2025) —In Defense of Animals joins concerned organizations and activists in urging the Canadian government to protect the remaining animals at Marineland Canada as the beleaguered park officially announced the sale of its rides. The organization is calling for transfer permits to be denied that would send them to similar substandard facilities where they would continue to be bred and exploited for entertainment.
Shocking new footage captured this month by TideBreakers has exposed many marine animals languishing in rapidly deteriorating tanks as the park is demolished around them, intensifying concerns for their safety and wellbeing.
Marineland has faced widespread scrutiny and multiple investigations for failing to provide adequate care for the animals confined there. Since 2019, 18 belugas, one orca, and one dolphin have died. Dozens of marine and land animals remain trapped in the now for-sale park, including31 belugas, four dolphins, three seals and two sea lions.
Marineland Canada has long been a focus of national and international criticism for its treatment of marine mammals, particularly its population of beluga whales and orca Kiska, who passed away in 2023 after decades in solitary confinement. A series of government investigations, public protests, and evolving legislation have steadily increased pressure on the park to shut down.
For the past couple of years Marineland Canada has been seeking new ownership. Earlier this year, Marineland was permitted to split the park into four parcels to secure mortgages intended to fund the relocation of the marine animals. However, there are no safeguards requiring the animals to be moved to appropriate facilities. One potential destination reportedly under consideration for the belugas is Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in Zhuhai, China — a facility criticized for its poor conditions and animal exploitation.
Such a transfer would violate both the spirit and intent of Canada’s federal Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act (Bill S-203), which prohibits cetacean captivity and breeding.
“The possible permanent closure of Marineland represents a turning point for how we treat animals,” said Hannah Williams, Cetacean Consultant for In Defense of Animals. “However, the government must step in to ensure these animals are properly cared for and prevent permits from being granted that would consign them to somewhere even worse. In Defense of Animals is calling on the Canadian government to ensure all remaining marine mammals at Marineland Canada are transferred to sanctuaries — not another marine park where they will suffer continued exploitation.”
In Defense of Animals has released its respected annual list of the Ten Worst Zoos For Elephants for 2016, exposing the shocking hidden suffering of elephants in zoos in North America. The list reveals captivity-related deaths, abuse with weapons, grossly inadequate conditions, families ripped apart, elephants torn from Africa and shipped to US zoos, elephants forced to wash cars, and even elephants found playing with a car battery.
“2016 was a shocking year for zoo elephant suffering”, said In Defense of Animals President, Dr. Marilyn Kroplick. “In our zoos, elephants’ rights are violated, they are stripped of their dignity, and submitted to disgusting abuses. We owe it to elephants to stop exploiting them. It is time to shut down archaic and barbaric zoo exhibits, and retire elephants to sanctuaries where they can live in peace.”
Zoos all over the US and one zoo in Canada appear on the worst list, with Oklahoma City Zoo shamed as the #1 Worst Zoo. Tragic captive elephant Chai was found dead outside the Oklahoma elephant exhibit on a very cold January morning in 2016, at just 37 years old. She had lost 1,000 pounds since she was shipped in from Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. Gut-wrenching footage reveals Chai in a severely emaciated and weak state, being hoisted on a crane after she was unable to stand up. After her death, Chai was found to have been suffering from a bacterial infection and untreated pus-filled abscesses, marking a gross failing of the zoo to provide basic animal care.
Chai’s only friend Bamboo survives her, and has since had two inches of her tail bitten off by another frustrated elephant in their prison-like pen. Bamboo has been kept in either in solitary confinement with the aggressive female, or in the occasional company of a young male; none of these circumstances constitute even reasonable social companionship. Yet Oklahoma Zoo callously describes this sad elephant inmate as doing “great”.
Chai and Bamboo are not the only victims of Oklahoma Zoo’s mismanagement. Baby elephant Malee died at in late 2015 at the age of just four. She was likely killed by the same herpes virus the zoo knew Chai and Bamboo had been exposed to.
All these tragedies may have been avoided by sending Chai and Bamboo to a sanctuary home that offered to accept the pair when Woodland Park Zoo shut down its elephant exhibit in 2014.
Shockingly, Oklahoma City Zoo is among half of all the captive facilities shamed on the Ten Worst Zoos List that are accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, showing how little AZA certification stands for. In 2016, the Association’s own study found social aspects of elephant lives to be of paramount importance to their wellbeing, yet 20% of AZA accredited zoos with elephant exhibits have only two elephants. Some AZA certified zoos are even keeping highly social elephants in isolation, such as the Bronx Zoo, where Happy the female elephant is tragically separated from two other females.
Zoos are consumers, not conservers, of elephants. Captive elephants are dying faster than they can reproduce, leading zoos to steal young elephants from the wild, which destroys the elephant societies zoos claim to be conserving. Behind the scenes, zoos in the US and Canada are condemning Earth’s largest land mammals to lifetimes of deprivation, disease, despair, and early death. It is time to end our shameful exploitation of elephants in American zoos.
10 WORST ZOOS:
1. Oklahoma City Zoo, Oklahoma
2. Natural Bridge Zoo, Rockbridge County, Virginia
In Defense of Animals is an international animal protection organization with over 250,000 supporters and a 30-year history of fighting for animals, people and the environment through education, campaigns and hands on rescue facilities in India, Africa, and rural Mississippi.
IN DEFENSE OF ANIMALS • 3010 KERNER BLVD. • SAN RAFAEL, CA 94901 • 415-448-0048 Please mention thesilo.ca when calling.
