Het Nieuwe Artis - The New Artis, some highlights

I have selected a few exemplary scenes of the documentary entitled ‘Het Nieuwe Artis’ (The New Artis) concerning Amsterdam Zoo’s mission. The documentary by Willemiek Kluijfhout shows some results of the current Amsterdam Zoo Masterplan and new ideas about how to keep zoo animals and present them to the visitors of Amsterdam Zoo. The documentary of 2018 follows the birth of the first ever elephant calf born in Amsterdam and the new modern elephant enclosure. Moreover, it gives transparent insight of how the public relation department discusses the strategy of how to exploit the newborn calf most successfully, as it ‘must’ generate more paying visitors. In the beginning of the documentary Haig Balian – Amsterdam Zoo director from 2003 until 2017 – wonders if it’s still acceptable to keep animals in captivity nowadays. Although it is obvious that, being the Zoo director, Balian thinks it is acceptable under the right conditions, he is at the same time critical about the knowledge zoo v