A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The special quality of this documentary is it's factual consistency and cyclic rhythm. It is very evident that the director is doing his best to stay with the facts, illustrate them in an appropriate way, and get the right people to say what is on their mind, without pushing his personal opinion in your face. The film invites the viewer to take part in the filmmakers fact-finding trip. It is clearly divided into different but interlinked themes, and each of these chapters are built up in the same way: filmed on the road to wherever the action is taking place, introducing whoever is going to be interviewed and in the end adding a comment by the UN representative. This gave me a strong feeling of taking part in the process and not being just showed the edited mash-up of someone like Michael Moore. It might seem a bit slow and tedious, but it makes the people and settings so much more real, and makes me finally want to start buying those organically grown tomatoes and stop eating factory produced meats.

So I begin my selection of this year's SIFF with a documentary. Directed by Erwin Wagenhofer, We Feed the World begins by highlighting a very fundamental wastage. That of overnight bread, tons of it being offloaded, meant for the incinerated, when there are thousands left hungry.The documentary focuses on various aspects on the supply side of the food chain, giving some insight to the various industries which produce food, like fishing, vegetables and poultry. It also provides a glimpse into the political side of supplying food, that of the profit maximization strategy of any public company (here, it's Nestle), of the genetically modified seeds which supposedly produces superior crop as opposed to better tasting, natural ones, and various EU plans and initiatives which seem to go down the wrong path instead of fulfilling its supposedly planned objectives.While it covers a lot of ground, some segments proved to be a little draggy and preachy. I particularly enjoyed the segment on the fishing industry, where there are plans to wrest knowledge from the small timers operating smaller fishing operations, and to eventually merge/close them down when the bigger boys come into the picture. As demonstrated in the movie, there are reasons why big trawlers doesn't equate to fresher and better catches.The other segment which moved was on the Brazilian's poor north-eastern parts, where on one hand, you have very poor people going hungry all the time, yet Brazil's one of the major exporters of maize to Europe. Maize which are used for burning for fuel generation. It just boggles the mind, and makes you feel sad at the way things work, illogical as it may seem, in the name of profit - watching the kids drink untreated murky water, and the adults resorting to unnatural means of keeping their children alive, will gloom your day.And I could have swore off chicken come the final segment. Nowadays lifestock are treated as an 8-week cycle of a production line, from incubating, hatching, fattening, until the final days of slaughtering, where they're hung upside down by the legs in conveyor belts, before passing through a circular bladed discs where their throats are slit, and left bleeding till death. For those which are missed by the blades, there is a butcher on standby with a knife to do the deed.But while the movie tried to made its points, what I found lacking are the many ways in which to link the message to the issues. Many times it felt a little sporadic, or the linking done quite weakly through intertitles. That aside, perhaps I'm already attuned to the more in-your-face style of Michael Moore, nevermind if there are echoes that his style is manipulative. For a topic like this, perhaps it could gain from that bit of controversy to hammer its opinions through.

I saw this film at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival. I would call this film a Mondovino for food. By which I mean it is an examination of how globalization and the growth of the power of corporations has affected the production of food. The director dispassionately takes us to farms in Romania and Brazil, a fishing boat in Brittany, a greenhouse in southern Spain, and a chicken processing plant in Austria.In all these places, we see traditional practices being abandoned in favour of giant factory operations. In each place, someone on camera asserts that flavour is not as important as price or appearance. So we see hothouse tomatoes being driven 2500 kilometres to be sold, we see rain forest cleared to grow soybeans, even though the soil is unsuitable, and we see the entire eight-week life cycle of thousands of chickens, raised to supply the incessant demands of the world for cheap food. Watching factory-farmed chickens being "processed" might be enough to turn some people into vegetarians. Except for the fact that our vegetables are really no better.There is some interesting information about GM (genetically modified) crops which are resistant to herbicides like Monsanto's Roundup and the growing use of hybrid seed. Unlike regular seed, which farmers used to save from year to year, hybrid seed cannot be used to raise a second crop, forcing farmers to keep buying seed from large seed firms like Pioneer. This raises all kinds of issues, and I really think the film could have spent more time here.The film ends with an interview with the CEO of Nestlé, the largest food manufacturer in the world, who muses on "attaching a value" to water, and calls the position of the NGOs, that access to clean water is a human right, "extreme". After bragging how many jobs his corporation is creating, and how many families it is supporting, he glances at an informational video of one of Nestlé's Japanese factories, and marvels how it is so roboticized. "Hardly any people," he crows.The only significant weakness to this documentary was its unrelenting gloom. I would have liked to have been given some ammunition or to have seen some success stories, or at least some rebellion. But there wasn't any. Since I have an interest in this area, I can point you to the Slow Food organization, which is trying to encourage more consumption of local products and the preservation of disappearing foodstuffs. But I really wish the director had done it instead.

I saw this film at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival.We Feed the World, by filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer, had its world premiere at the festival. The film, two years in the making, takes a look at the production of food and the effects on it from globalization and commercialization.The film is divided up into sections, each of which focuses on a different part of the industry. It jumps from fishermen in Brittany, to massive greenhouse operations in Spain, to the use of hybrid seeds in eastern Europe, to the production of soya in Brazil, to chicken production in Europe, and finally to Switzerland, the home of Nestle, the biggest food corporation in the world. Each section talks about the challenges facing people and the impact felt around the world. There is no narration; the people interviewed in the film simply tell their stories and give their opinions.There is the fisherman in Brittany, talking about the effect of European Union regulations on his livelihood. There is the senior manager with agriculture giant Pioneer, who gives his own personal views at odds with the company line. And then there is the CEO of Nestle, who matter-of-factly states his own opinions about food which may seem shocking to many. Interspersed are interviews with a food expert from the UN who provides insight into how the things shown in the film are affecting, often adversely, people around the world.The movie is not overly didactic, but it does cause you to think about how the food you eat is produced and how so many people in the world can be starving when so much food is produced and wasted in the industrialized world.Erwin Wagenhofer attended the screening and did a Q&A after the movie: - When asked about how or what we should even eat, Wagenhofer said you should think about where your food comes from and how it is produced, and buy locally-produced food.Asked how he managed to secure the interviews, especially with people who might not normally participate in such a documentary, Wagenhofer said the first time he approaches someone, he never brings a camera. In fact, he doesn't for the first 4 or 5 times, by which time people see he is not out to make fun of them, and they eventually agree to be filmed.When asked about the comments the head of Nestle, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, makes, Wagenhofer said that he believes those are Brabeck's actual feelings about the subject, and that he probably would not be upset about the film in any way.Why food? Wagenhofer said that food is something close to everyone, that everyone has to eat every day.On his next project, Wagenhofer couldn't say what it is, other than it is a step forward from this film.The film was finished only one month ago.When asked what we should take from this film, Wagenhofer said the film is called "We Feed the World", not "They Feed the World," meaning that we are all part of the system, and that it is up to "us" to change it, as "they" have no desire to.