3/3/10

The Food Film You Probably Haven't Seen

You've heard of Food, Inc. and you've probably heard of The Future of Food, but I'm willing to guess the film Pig Business doesn't ring a bell. And according to this article, it's because it's effectively been banned in the U.S.

That’s how it’s gone with the British 2009 documentary film Pig Business. I watched this film in several 10-minute segments via YouTube (Part One) because it hasn’t been released in the U.S., primarily due to legal pressure brought upon the director (Tracy Worcester, who spent four years making the film) by the film’s main villain, Smithfield Foods. The world’s largest pork producer, Smithfield has 52,000 employees processing 27 million pigs per year in 15 countries, accruing annual sales around $12 billion. The UK’s Channel 4 ran the film last summer despite four letters from Smithfield threatening litigation, but since no U.S. insurer would back the film’s release here, it has become essentially a black-market film. Score another one for corporate censorship.


The more I read about this, the more I'm starting to think meat should have an ingredients label on it. Trailer for the film below. The whole movie is available on Youtube.



via Feminist Law Professors.

No comments:

Post a Comment