On this day in vegan history · September 7, 2008
Food, Inc. Opens Eyes in Toronto
A documentary about hamburgers and corn subsidies premiered at a film festival and left audiences looking at their dinner plates differently.
The facts
- World premiere
- September 7, 2008, Toronto International Film Festival (AMC 6)
- Director
- Robert Kenner
- Narrators
- Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser
- Recognition
- Nominated, Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, 82nd Academy Awards (lost to The Cove)
Robert Kenner's documentary Food, Inc. had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2008, screening at the AMC 6 theater. Narrated by journalists Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, the film pulled back the curtain on how a small number of corporations control most of America's meat, chicken, and corn production. It showed feedlots, slaughterhouses, and the workers inside them to a mainstream audience that mostly never saw where its food came from. The film opened in US theaters the following June and went on to earn an Oscar nomination.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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You are what you eat. It is a simple expression that bears scary implications as you watch Food, Inc.
Toronto International Film Festival, official 2008 program description
Source: TIFF (2008 festival site)
Why it still matters
Food, Inc. gave a mainstream audience its first real look inside industrial agriculture, turning terms like factory farming into dinner-table conversation. It didn't shut down a single slaughterhouse, but it made the case that eaters had a right to know what happened before the food reached the plate.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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