Food for Profit is the first feature documentary that exposes the links between the meat industry, lobbying and the corridors of power. It denounces how Europe is transferring hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ money into the hands of intensive farms, which mistreat animals, pollute the environment, and pose a potential danger for future pandemics.
With a cinematic approach for an investigative documentary, Giulia and Pablo take us on an enlightening but shocking journey across Europe, where they confront farmers, corporations and politicians. Their team of investigators infiltrated farms in many European countries, exposing the truth behind the perceived excellence of European dairy and meat. In parallel, a fake agrifood lobbyist has infiltrated the high spheres of power at the European Parliament, secretly recording MEPs and gaining shocking information.
Food for Profit not only discloses the horror of intensive farms and the political corruption behind it, but with a pool of international experts, it tackles and analyses the many problems related to factory farming: from water pollution to exploitation of migrants and from biodiversity loss to antibiotic resistance.
The film’s outcry is loud and clear: we must stop this corrupt system now if we want to save the planet. And ourselves, too.
After 5 years of hard investigative work, we announced the release of the investigative documentary Food for Profit to the World. Several newspapers and newspapers picked up on the news, and a few days later one of the big groups we had investigated and talked about in the film had already sent us a warning – before the film was released in theaters. Fortunately, we didn’t let that stop us!
The world premiere of the film was in Brussels, at the European Parliament, right where we filmed the investigations shown in the movie. With this first screening, attended by many Members of the European Parliament, we wanted to send a very clear message: it’s time for good politics to make a difference, without allowing economic interests and corrupt policies to decide our future.
At the screening of the documentary at the Sicilian Parliament, attended by many local political figures and several students, Ismaele La Vardera — vice president of the Anti-Mafia Commission of the Sicilian Parliament — stated that he would work to make Sicily the first region to adopt a moratorium on the opening of new intensive farms.
After almost a month since the film’s release in theaters, Food for Profit is the number one film in terms of theater occupancy in Italy. This success does not even account for the various screenings held in other venues — such as restaurants and social clubs. A success that has led the film to become the fourth most-watched movie in a single day, even approaching Dune 2.
The event, organized with the valuable help of MP Eleonora Evi, once again allowed us to showcase in a key political location all the truths connecting the ties between the meat lobby and politics. Before the screening, we also organized a flash mob in front of the Parliament, thanks to the body painter artist Emanuela Lela Peretto.
We organized two important screenings of Food for Profit in the power halls of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, two of the regions with the highest number of intensive farms in our country. It was here that we reiterated our core message: no more new intensive farms, no more expansion of existing ones, and most importantly, stop public subsidies to this industry that causes suffering to people, animals, and the environment.
After the success of the documentary, Paolo De Castro — who had even filed a lawsuit against us — and Clara Aguilera, two MEPs whose shocking statements we featured in Food for Profit, decided not to run for re-election. It was one of our biggest victories!
A special episode of the investigative program Report — the most important investigative program aired on RAI, Italy’s national TV — broadcast cut segments, with Sigfrido Ranucci in the studio. Including the rerun, it was watched by over 2.3 million people. Showing what we discovered on a RAI investigative program, on public service TV, holds immense (and unexpected) value for us, because it means we brought directly into the homes of Italians the tight link between the billions that intensive farming receives, the lobby, and politics.
After the premiere in Barcelona, Food for Profit has arrived in Spain! The film, which had generated a lot of buzz and led the Spanish MEP to not seek re-election, toured the entire country and, within just a few weeks, became the sixth most-watched film in Spain, alongside the installation of the sculpture of the Madonna of the Dirty Water in the Mar Menor.
Food for Profit was among the winning films at the 27th CinemAmbiente Film Festival in Turin, one of the most important film events in Italy, receiving the “Environment and Society Award” for its ability to combine ecological themes with social dimensions.
After being at the top of the box office rankings in Italy for weeks, and after we aired clips on Report in prime time, Food for Profit is now available for streaming and on DVD (in Italy)
The film was selected for the Septimius Awards in Amsterdam. It is a true honor for us to be nominated for one of the most prestigious awards in the world, with participants including winners of Emmys, BAFTAs, and Oscars.
Food for Profit at the Innsbruck Nature Film Festival in Vienna received the Best Environmental Documentary 2024, the most prestigious award of the festival. Here’s the jury’s motivation:
“Throughout the documentary, it is clear that it took a strong stomach to create this film, as well as courageous and bold journalistic skills. The directors managed to capture images and scenes that the food industry does not want us to see. They show us how animal welfare and hygiene standards are seriously neglected in farms across the European Union. They succeeded in painting a broader picture of the entire food industry in all its complexity, bringing both local and global food consumption closer to daily life. This film is a true call to action.”
In Food for Profit, we conducted an undercover investigation at a turkey farm near Rieti, run on behalf of one of the largest Italian meat producers.
Thanks to the investigation carried out together with LAV, the facility is now closed! In our investigation, we showed how workers, often not in regular employment, were paid based on the number of trucks filled with turkeys. This led to the continuous mistreatment of animals, being shoved and thrown into cages to speed up the work and increase their pay. And when we tried to speak with him, we were assaulted and chased for hours that same night with intimidating and violent methods.
One year after the premiere of the documentary in Brussels, we returned in front of the European Parliament, and Eumans, the pan-European popular initiative movement founded by Marco Cappato, organized a flash mob to send a clear message: stop funding with public money a system that destroys the planet, health, and animal life.
Afterward, we participated in the Eumans congress, also within the European Parliament, to share the impact of the film and the changes it has generated.
The film continues its international tour and has now arrived in the Netherlands, with numerous screenings.
For the film’s launch, we conducted a new investigation at two intensive pig farms in the Netherlands, a country known for its high farming standards. However, our footage shows the opposite: carcasses of pigs, poor hygienic conditions, and many other issues. Even more concerning is the fact that these facilities are owned by Henk Meerdink, an elected politician linked to the BBB, the Dutch farmers’ party — in other words, those who support the meat lobby, intensive farming, and oppose green policies.
The international tour of Food for Profit has also reached Portugal. The first two screenings organized with the Festival do Cinema Italiano, which was also attended by director Giulia Innocenzi, were very well attended, and the reactions from the audience were impressive.
To launch the film in the country, we released an investigation documenting the alarming environmental impact and the terrible conditions of animals in three intensive pig farms in the Leiria district. In this area, the meat industry has grown exponentially, thanks to millions in public funds and connections with politics.
Before the first screening, together with activists from Animal Save Portugal, we organized an impactful flash mob in front of the cinema in Lisbon to show the footage from our investigation in the three farms in Portugal.
We’ve come a long way! Since 2004, the Seoul International ECO Film Festival has been the first and largest film festival in South Korea focused on environmental issues. They invited us for a screening of our documentary. Some clips from Food for Profit, including an interview with director Pablo, were featured on EBS News, the South Korean public television.
Additionally, they published a lengthy article about Food for Profit from the press conference in the Korea Herald, one of the leading South Korean newspapers and the most-read Korean newspaper abroad — we were the only film presented at the festival to be featured in such an important publication.
The Deauville Green Awards, held in Paris, is an international festival founded in 2012, a true reference point for films, documentaries, and audiovisual campaigns focused on environmental and social sustainability issues. Here, for documentaries, we were awarded as the winner in the category “Fighting and Adapting to Climate Change.”