Long Live Benjamin

When artist Allen Hirsch’s wife finds a weak orphaned monkey during their honeymoon in Venezuela in 1997, the newlyweds decide to keep him. A close bond quickly forms between Hirsch and Benjamin, the name they give to the capuchin monkey. Hirsch smuggles him in his pocket onto the plane to New York, and then raises the animal in their apartment. To Hirsch, the monkey is like a child: “With Benjamin, it was the closest relationship I ever had with someone. He became more man, I became more animal.” But when Benjamin starts to reach puberty, he becomes increasingly difficult to handle – the start of a very stressful time for Hirsch, when he has to start letting go of Benjamin. Using poignant, fascinating archive footage, interviews and Hirsch’s artwork within a cleverly constructed narrative, this tragic story deals with the deep bond between man and ape, the impossibility of the two of them really living together, and finding solace in art.