Jordi Casamitjana, the author of the book “Ethical Vegan”, reviews the Italian documentary “Food for Profit” about factory farming in the EU, which is now showing in the UK after it became a box-office hit in Europe.
I have already watched quite a few.
Having been vegan for over 20 years now, and having been active in the animal protection movement for several decades, I have watched many documentaries on veganism and animal protection. Most of them, though, were from English-speaking countries, and most of them followed similar narratives, creating a filmmaking genre which probably started with the iconic groundbreaking American documentary Earthlings, released in 2005.
Since then, there have been many successful award-winning feature-length documentaries that have continued exposing the wrongs of animal exploitation and pushing for the vegan world paradigm. For instance, Meat the Truth, (2007), Food, Inc. (2008), Vegucaded (2011), Forks over Knives (2011), The Ghosts in our Machine (2013), Speciesism the Movie (2013), Blackfish (2013), Cowspiracy (2014), The End of Meat (2017), What a Health (2017), Land of Hope and Glory (2017), Dominion (2018), 73 Cows (2018), The Game Changers (2018), The Animal People (2019), Hogwood: A Modern Horror Story (2020), Seaspiracy (2021), Milked (2021), Eating Our Way to Extinction (2022), The End of Medicine (2022), The Land of Ahimsa (2022), Mother’s Milk (2023) I Could Never Go Vegan (2024), and Christpiracy (2024).
I have written reviews of several of these, so I was also keen to write a review of the new documentary “Food for Profit” as I heard it had been a box-office success in several European countries. I read that the film explored the impacts and nefarious tactics of Big Meat ahead of a key vote in the EU and exposed the undemocratic processes that underpin the meat and dairy industries, as well as its impacts on the environment, communities, health, migrant and vulnerable workers, and, of course, farmed animals.
However, this feature-length documentary was not available on streaming platforms yet and it had not been shown in the UK, so I was impatiently looking forward to the moment any of these two logistical obstacles would collapse. The latter did so just this week, as the documentary will be shown in three UK cinemas to start with. Initially screened for just three nights in the UK (hopefully more in the future) it was scheduled for 29th October 2024 in Ealing (West London), 30th October in Brighton, and 7th November in Brixton (South London).
I was pleased to have been invited to attend the screening in Ealing at the Picture House cinema, an event that included a discussion panel composed of the film’s director Pablo D’Ambrosi, Rose Patterson from Animal Rising, and Abigail Penny from Animal Equality UK.
An Italian Production Focused on Europe
“Food For Profit” is the first feature documentary that exposes the links between the meat industry, political lobbying, and the corridors of power in the EU. It shows how Europe is transferring hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ funds into the hands of factory farms (or “intensive farms”, a synonymous term that becomes a semantic point of debate in the film), that abuse animals, pollute the environment, and increase the risk of future pandemics. With a spectacular cinematic approach for an investigative documentary, Italian co-directors Giulia Innocenzi and Pablo D’Ambrosi take us on an enlightening but shocking journey across Europe (Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium, and Poland), where they confront farmers, corporations, lobbyists, and politicians.
Their team of undercover investigators, coordinated by the Lega Anti Vivisezione (LAV) — the main animal rights organisation in Italy created in 1977 — infiltrated cow, pig, chicken, and turkey farms in several European countries, exposing the truth behind European dairy and meat production (for both the farmed animals and the humans working there). However, perhaps the most innovative aspect of their story is when Lorenzo Mineo, a multilingual investigator posing as an EU lobbyist, infiltrated the high spheres of power in Brussels, gaining interesting information from the world of EU politics. When he is not investigating, Mineo also coordinates the Brussels office of Eumans- Citizens for Democracy and Sustainability, a pan-European movement based on popular initiatives which promote campaigns on human rights and sustainability.
Giulia Innocenzi is a prime-time Italian TV host and journalist also known for her investigations into factory farms. She currently works for the investigative TV program Report, broadcast on the national public TV RAI. Through her exposés, she has targeted big brands like Parma Ham and Fileni, the first Italian organic chicken producer, and recently she managed to get into the 26-storey pig “hotel” in China, an undercover investigation that was picked up by many international media outlets. Her book about the meat and dairy industries, “Tritacarne”, has become a bestseller.
Pablo D’ambrosi is a British-Italian filmmaker who has been involved in feature documentaries since 2008. He has worked on music documentaries for artists such as The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Adele, and The Clash, and has worked for the prestigious BBC programs Panorama and This World, which won the Prix Europa for Best Current Affairs Documentary.
Together, the two directors created the production company Pueblo Unido (Giulia Innocenzi is also the named producer of the documentary). This 90-minute film, with amazing shots from Director of Photography Krishna Agazzi combined with impressive footage from drones and sophisticated undercover cameras, not only is very informative and revealing, but also a very entertaining high-quality production.
One of the stunning features of this film is the prolific use of animation (often through 3-D stop-motion animated figures), which was created by Jonathan Reyes, a US Emmy-winning designer, director, and animator, who is the former executive Creative Director at CNN Digital. Alessandro Giovanetto, an Italian film composer, producer, and guitarist who graduated from both the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance and the Royal College of Music in London, composed the film’s original score.
A Different Type of Documentary
As I mentioned earlier, I have watched many animal protection and vegan documentaries, but most of them follow similar narratives and were produced in English-speaking countries — or were very influenced by US films. “Food for Profit” is different. The difference possibly stems from it being an Italian production — a welcome change — and mostly focusing on EU countries — which was long overdue. However, I also think it is different because its narrative style, although it does follow some of the traditional elements of the vegan documentary genre, is quite distinctive. This is a refreshing change, and it opens the door to more variation within the genre.
For instance, this documentary relies more on confrontational journalism instead of heavily relying on interviews with experts. The story is told from the eyes of Giulia Innocenzi herself, who, politely but assertively, is confronting farmers, lobbyists, and politicians with damaging facts and printouts of images obtained by undercover investigators who previously investigated the facilities they are responsible for (or are supporting). These confrontations give a lot of drama to this documentary, adding real jeopardy that feels very authentic — compared with other documentaries where it feels a bit manufactured for narrative purposes. The subjects of confrontation were not limited to general animal welfare problems, but also possible breaking of national and EU legislation.
Another unique feature of the story is the undercover investigator posing as a lobbyist recording revelatory discussions with several lobbyists of the animal agriculture industry, as well as with Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who support said industry. He sometimes even used — with great success — outrageous fabricated projects (such as farms producing six-legged pigs) to see if they would support them too. The vote for the Common Agriculture Policy at the EU Parliament, and issues such as gene editing and precision animal breeding in meat production (which can accelerate genetic changes in domestic animals), intensive farming, and subsidies to animal agriculture, were among the subjects explored.
I like the fact that the film does not name the farmers or agricultural companies investigated, and blurs many of the names and faces because in this way it avoids the typical “bad apple” response we often see in these types of exposés. By leaving them “un-targeted” the focus is more on the system itself, rather than on the “bad performers”. As they expose several farms in several countries, the systemic problem can be inferred.
Another difference is that I don’t think this documentary qualifies as a “vegan documentary” in the strict sense of the term. The word “vegan” is not mentioned once, and there is not an explicit message telling people that they should become vegan (although the implicit message is quite clear for people like me who know this subject well). Contrary to what we see in most vegan documentaries, that first explain what the problem is and then show the solution pointing to veganism, this one does not end in a solution. It leaves it open for the viewers to draw their own conclusions. If anything, if a solution can be heard in the voice of any of the interviewees, this is leaning more toward reductionism and vegetarianism (the famous philosopher Peter Singer is seen using the term “vegetarian” in a context where the word “vegan” would have been used in any other classical vegan documentary). The fact that the egg industry was skipped in the investigations also seems to support this conclusion. I believe the general message of the film is not “go vegan to solve the world’s global problems”, but simply “stop subsidising intensive farms in Europe”, which is a less ambitious goal (but an essential one in the process of building a vegan world).
When a member of the audience at the Ealing screening asked director Pablo D’ambrosi about the lack of explicit vegan (or even plant-based) messaging, he replied that the reason was that he wanted to leave the message open at the end of the film, just showing that the system needs to change without imposing to the viewer how it should change. He also said that this approach is likely why the film was so successful in Italy and Spain, where most of the audience watching it were not vegan. In this regard, the film has more the taste of an investigative TV programme (like Panorama from the BBC) than of a vegan campaigning documentary, which has probably contributed to its mainstream reach.
A Great Success in Europe
D’ambrosi explained to the Ealing audience in the Q&A session that the documentary has already achieved a “campaigning” success. Two of the MEPs investigated in it, the Italian Pablo de Castro and the Spanish Clara Aguilera, are no longer MEPs because they decided not to run for re-election in 2024 after the public was outraged when the documentary revealed their clear connection with the unscrupulous meat and dairy industries.
That outrage was possible because many people saw the movie in Europe. The film, which took 5 years to complete in the middle of the COVID pandemic, was premiered on 22nd February 2024 at the EU Parliament (something of an achievement in itself considering how it criticises its vulnerability to the industry’s “influence”) and then was shown in cinemas in Milan and Rome. Initially, that was the extent of its release, but social media came to the rescue. People used it to contact cinemas and distributors asking them to show the film, and they began to do so. Eventually, big film distributors picked it up, and it ended up being shown in cinemas more than 2000 times in Italy and 1000 in Spain. In the end, it was shown for 18 consecutive weeks and ended up being in the top 10 most-seen Italian films for four weeks. The film was eventually bought by RAI, the Italian national TV channel. For a documentary of this genre, this is quite an achievement.
The film is not available on streaming platforms yet, but the director said this may change because some of them, which rejected it initially claiming that it was too political, now have approached him again having seen the commercial success it already has had.
The new phase of the project has now started with its screening in the UK, in January 2025 in Belgium and the Netherlands, and later Germany and Austria. The next screening in the UK will be at the Ritzy cinema on 7th November 2024 at 8 PM, and the panel will be composed of Robbie Lockie, CEO and founder of Freedom Food Alliance and Co-founder of Plant Based News, Ben Newman from Animal Rising, and director Pablo D’Ambrosi. Tickets can be purchased here.
“Food for Profit” is an interesting and refreshing new documentary worth watching.
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