Better Call Babs

Better Call Babs

Directed by Cam Lui, Michael Schnee

A raw portrait into the life of Babs Fry, a vigilante pet detective, as she finds redemption in the face of recovery, all while dedicating her life to rescuing and rehabilitating lost dogs.

Director Statement

As freelance filmmakers, we have to make daily creative compromises to appease our clients or whoever it is that happens to be paying the bills that day. For us, this Documentary was an opportunity to have creative agency and make something the way we wanted to make it.

This did not come without challenges – self-funding a film meant years of commitment, years of filming and editing in our spare time, years of wondering if we would have the resources and bandwidth to properly tell this story. Now that we are at the stage of submitting to festivals, we could not be more proud and excited to share this film with the world.

“Better Call Babs” is a film about a recovering addict that finds purpose in rescuing and rehabilitating lost pets and feral strays. We were first drawn to Babs’ eccentric personality and awe inspiring work. But as filming with Babs began, we discovered a fascinating juxtaposition between her fight with her past addiction to her work in the field. We realized she wasn’t just some crazy lady that loved dogs, but was motivated by something much more powerful. The way she stays sober and the way she finds purpose is through service and through helping others – much in the same way that she needed help when she was lost.

Director Biography

Cam Lui is an award winning Documentary Filmmaker, Commercial Editor and is the co-founder of Who Are you Media with Coral Brook (producer, “Better Call Babs”). Michael Schnee is an award winning Screenwriter, Producer and Sound Designer.

Cam and Michael met on the first day of production for their first feature documentary “Almost Home: Life After Incarceration.” While filming “Almost Home,” they quickly became good friends and close collaborators.

Early on, they both found common ground in their love for story telling, and strong narrative backgrounds. Cam, with a screenwriting degree from Chapman’s Dodge College, and Michael, with a strong catalogue of award winning short films, developed a character driven approach that they were eager to utilize.

After feeling creatively restricted by administrative factors out of their control and about half way through production for “Almost Home,” Michael brought this idea of a ‘Pet Detective Doc’ to Cam. After looking into Babs and learning of her outlandish circumstance and persona, it became clear what their next project would be – a character driven introspective about a flawed yet inspiring person, told without a filter.

After 3 years of filming and editing in between paid gigs and life’s obstacles, they have a film that truly shows who Babs is, blemishes and all.

Plays in

Heroes Among Us- Doc Block 1