The Pupil Person Association Award for Bugs' Rights Activism and Awareness of the Plight of the Cockroach

2024 recipient - RON ROACH BY COBY PALIVATHUKAL

The Pupil Person Association for Bugs’ Rights Activism and Awareness of the Plight of the Cockroach was found in 1994 by Pupil Person, a businessman who keeps thousands and thousands of pet cockroaches, and he treats them as if they are his dogs or something. Person started the organization to desperately seek short films that helped humans understand the perils and tribulations of cockroach life. Pupil Person’s goal with his organization was “to prove once and for all that roaches are basically exactly like people, even if it takes me until my last dying breath.”

This has proven a very difficult task, says chairwoman Alina Weebleton in 2022, “Every year, we seek out films that can help give light onto the struggle of the cockroach, but nobody seems to be interested in the interior life of a cockroach. It’s an endless thankless task.” Weebleton finds this trend disturbing, adding “If we don’t find a film that talks about the interior life of a cockroach within the next 2 years, I’m actually going to kill myself”.

In 2024, Pupil Person association partnered with Transfiguration International Film Festival, hoping that the film expertise of the curators could finally help them find the film they had been dreaming of.

Programmer Jonni Peppers, a sympathizer of the organization’s goals (she’s vegan) was up for the challenge. After mulling through hundreds of millions of films throughout the world, she was about to give up, when suddenly she stumbled upon the film Ron Roach by Coby Palivathukal.

Says Peppers, “Palivathukal’s film, by juxtaposing human faces onto the bodies of cockroaches, violently throws us into a world where we have to attribute our wants and desires as humans onto the bodies and minds of cockroaches. What happens when we put our faces onto the bodies of cockroaches, and further, put our feet into their numerous shoes?”

Thankfully, after 20 years of waiting, Pupil Person is still alive to witness Ron Roach, stating “I finally have a reason to live, and it’s all thanks to the film Ron Roach.”

The Pupil Person association award was awarded to Ron Roach at Transfiguration International Film Festival Providence Rhode Island edition 2024.

Ron Roach was in attendance to receive the award from Pupil Person. We forgot to take a picture, so here’s an artist’s rendition: