Chimpanzee is based on the stranger-than-fiction stories of chimpanzees raised as children in human homes, in a series of cross-fostering experiments conducted in the United States. When these chimpanzees matured, or when funding dried up, some of these cross-fostered chimps went on to live as test subjects in a radically different area of scientific research – pathogen studies performed in biomedical facilities. Hundreds of chimpanzees remain warehoused in labs to this day.
Chimpanzee is an hour in a theater, a day in a biomedical facility, and a lifetime in the mind of a chimpanzee.