S5 Ep 3: Vegan for Animals, Vegan for Humans with Shawn Bannon
“I’m not just vegan for the animals. I’m also vegan for humans. Being compassionate for humans is very important— understanding the conditions that people are living in and the oppression that is going on.” — Shawn Bannon
Series: Mindful Eating Film and Food Festival
On a farm, animals are treated like machines. They're kept in cages with no room to move or express themselves, and they live their entire lives on the same land with no chance of escape. They are fed a diet that is unnatural and often unhealthy, and they are exploited to produce resources for humans.
But what about the people who live nearby? How do they fit into this equation? The truth is that it's not different at all. When animals are used as a farming tool, they lose their lives—directly through slaughter and indirectly through pollution caused by pesticides and other toxic chemicals used on crops to protect them from disease-carrying insects or weeds. In many cases, these chemicals also seep into groundwater supplies where many human communities live causing health issues. Furthermore, communities also have to face economic challenges and even oppression from these large corporations.
Directed and Produced by award-winning filmmaker Shawn Bannon, The Smell of Money sheds light on this horrific truth. This documentary features the story of Elsie Herring and the rest of her community and their decade-long battle to reclaim their rights to clean water and a healthy environment. Rancho Compasión’s 3rd Annual Mindful Eating Film and Food Festival to be held on the 6th and 7th of August, 2022 features this heart-wrenching and motivational documentary.
Listen in as Shawn shares more about The Smell of Money and his motivation behind the environmentally-themed film. Justine and Shawn discuss how going vegan benefits not only the animals and the environment but also humans and how we, as a community, can be a part of changing our food system.
Connect with Shawn:
Shawn Bannon is an award-winning filmmaker whose films have been screened at the Sundance Film Festival, AFI FEST, and featured on The Atlantic, Forbes, and BBC America. His short films, Hurricane Heroes, Bloody Barbara, and A Ghost Story – 10 Pages, have all been selected for Vimeo Staff Picks. His recent film The Green Knight Documentary was made for A24 and premiered on iTunes. The Smell of Money is his first feature-length documentary.
Episode Highlights:
01:46 The Shame of Point Reyes
04:39 Opening the Public’s Eyes
07:58 The Truth Exposed Through the Lens
09:55 There is Still a Choice
12:13 Connect with Interested and Interesting People
Resources:
Event
The 3rd Annual Mindful Eating Film and Food Festival (August 6th and 7th, 2022)
Get your tickets here: https://bit.ly/3SeJ7RJ
Film
Tweets:
When Elsie Herring and her neighbors in rural North Carolina encounter serious health issues due to a corporate pig farm, a decade-long legal battle ensues to reclaim their rights. Learn how we are all a part of this narrative as @jreichman and @shawn_bannon shares The Smell of Money, a heart-wrenching motivational documentary featured in The Mindful Eating Film and Food Festival 2022. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #MEFF2022 #MindfulEatingFilm&FoodFestival #documentaries #film #videography #activism #environmentalissues #animalwelfare #foodchoices #pollution
Inspirational Quotes:
04:36 “The hardest thing is to know that society is not emotional as a whole about animals.” -Shawn Bannon
06:09 “I’m not just vegan for the animals. I’m also vegan for humans. Being compassionate for humans is very important— understanding the conditions that people are living in and the oppression that is going on.” -Shawn Bannon
09:39 “Pollution is something that a lot of residents have been living with for decades now. And there’s just not been a good solution to clean up these issues. What we’re trying to do is not just shine a light on this, but to motivate people, to motivate change.” -Shawn Bannon
10:03 “Even individual choices aren’t enough. We need to work together to change the laws to protect the people and the environment.” -Shawn Bannon
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Welcome to Essential Ingredients, I'm your host, Justine Reichman. Today with me is Shawn Bannon. He is a documentary filmmaker. Today, we are here to talk about The Smell of Money and learn more about him.
Welcome, Shawn.
Shawn Bannon: Oh, thanks for having me. I really appreciate being on your program.
Justine Reichman: I'm so excited to learn more about you and The Smell of Money. This is coming out next week already. And this is a little prelude and a little special insight and guest appearance before the Mindful Eating Film Festival that's coming up. We're so pleased to have you here to learn more about you and what we can expect to see at the film festival. So Shawn, if you'd like to tell us a little bit about yourself so our audience can get to know you?
Shawn Bannon: Okay. I'm a documentary filmmaker. I've been making films for 15 or so years, usually with an environmental theme of some kind, lots of a lot of animal rights work. I've actually filmed up several times with Miyoko. I've filmed animal rescues, and I filmed her cheese factory, which has been really cool. And this movie, though, I went out to North Carolina and filmed over the course of four years.
Justine Reichman: So why animals? You talk a lot about animals and about farming, how did you get into that space?
Shawn Bannon: I've been vegan now for about 26 years. A very long time. When I went to film school, I became vegan at the same time. So my filmmaking and my activism kind of started at the same exact time. But early on, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't living in a bubble so I always try to balance out my filmmaking and not just do activist work. It's not always easy to do that so I get kind of swept up in doing my activist work, but it's also can be very challenging because these are very, I've done investigations, I've worked on, even very intense factory farming, going into factory farms and filming, open investigations, I filmed elephant cruelty, all these kinds of things over the years. And it's very challenging. I do go and try to actively film very fun and entertaining stuff as well to take a break every once in a while because this kind of work can be exhausting.
Justine Reichman: So what came first, the desire to be vegan, the desire to activate it, or the desire to film to connect the two.
Shawn Bannon: Filming came first for me. When I was researching doing a film about animal experimentation, I was actually a vegetarian before I became a filmmaker. So I kind of had an interest in activism. I guess technically, activism did come first for me. But my filmmaking, it just didn't connect at all until I was really making my first film and researching about animal experimentation. I just went kind of vegan overnight. That's kind of the beginning. And then it's just been, I was really a hardcore vegan right away. Like overnight. My mom was just so angry because she hadn't made all this banana bread, my favorite banana bread. I was just like, sorry, well, what can I do? It was like the next stage, like, what are you talking about? But she understood. It's been amazing ever since. It's just one of those things like 26 years later. The reasons I'm vegan now are so different from the reasons I started in the first place. I'm glad I'm still vegan. But now, living this lifestyle for so long, it's just as everything's changed so much over that time period.
Justine Reichman: Was there like a couple of things that you learned through your investigation that really impacted you to make that decision?
“The hardest thing is to know that society is not emotional as a whole about animals.” -Shawn Bannon
Shawn Bannon: One of those things where I'm so passionate about the animals early on, and it's one of those things I think when you witness it in person, I don't want to talk emotionally about it. I am one of those people that once I start getting emotional, it's hard for me to stop. And it's being emotional about animal stuff is one of, I think the hardest thing is to know society is not emotional as a whole about animal issues. And that's one thing I've learned is like, and to understand why that is, and I think that's been the hardest thing to understand like, I get you understand why humans now as a culture, American culture is very distant from factory farming and how our culture can look the other way. But we also love our companion animals. That was something early on that was very hard for me to deal with. I think now I understand why that is. It's frustrating, but I can't live with that kind of pain all the time. So right now, a lot of my work I do, I try to focus on these huge major corporations and not individuals. I spend a lot of my time focused on individuals at some point, and that's where I feel like you get really burned out and stuff trying to make every single person go vegan and stuff. It can be very challenging.
Justine Reichman: Really, really hard. So I'm curious, tell me the objective of your films, what's the biggest objective you have in creating these films, or producing these films?
“I’m not just vegan for the animals. I’m also vegan for humans. Being compassionate for humans is very important— understanding the conditions that people are living in and the oppression that is going on.” -Shawn Bannon
Shawn Bannon: With The Smell of Money, specifically, it's about communities in North Carolina that are impacted by environmental factors. So it's really not talking about the conditions for the animals themselves. We started filming over four years ago now, and that's the time I'm like, okay, now, I'm not just vegan for the animals, I'm also vegan for humans. I recognize that being compassionate for humans is also just very, very important being understanding of the conditions that people are living in and the oppression that is going on in American culture as well. And just understanding that food choices, and food access, and economic decisions that people have can be very challenging for people. So that's one of the biggest lessons I learned filming in North Carolina is you're filming in communities where a lot of people are living off of well water. So with their wells getting contaminated by Hogwarts pollution and they have to drink that water, what's the alternative for them? That's pretty insane. You have a billion dollar corporation saying, no, we didn't pollute that water. It's pretty insane. So some of those communities have access now like they piped in water, but now those residents have to pay for that water. And that economy, that can really impact money that's survived and been able to grow their own vegetables and grow their own food now has to pay for those resources where they were self-sufficient for decades and decades.
Justine Reichman: Well, so when you initially, you've screened this film before?
Shawn Bannon: So we premiered at Sarasota in April, and we won the Jury Award, which was really exciting for us. And then we had an international premiere of Hot Docs in Canada, which is North America's biggest Documentary Film Festival, and we got the top five audience for it. So that was really exciting. So this will be our West Coast premiere, Mindful Eating Film Festival. So that's very exciting.
Justine Reichman: I'm just curious, so when you premiered this in those communities, what were some of the responses that you got?
“Pollution is something that a lot of residents have been living with for decades now. And there’s just not been a good solution to clean up these issues. What we’re trying to do is not just shine a light on this, but to motivate people, to motivate change.” -Shawn Bannon
Shawn Bannon: I feel like in Canada Hot Docs, it's been very emotional. We've been lucky where community members have been at the screenings, and I think for people to meet people impacted by these industries and to sit next to them, it changes you forever. Honestly, filming in these communities changes you forever. It's something I do, you do have to see the movie, I can't really explain it. It's like one of those things. So we are having a screening the week after with all the community members in North Carolina. Otherwise, we would have brought people out to the Mindful Eating Festival. It was just too challenging with the tight turnaround because it is a big screening and North kind of just for community members. And it's just a lot to ask them to travel because a lot of them do, a lot of people in the film have different health issues which you'll see when you're watching the movie, which is a big part of the movie is the pollution, the air pollution, the water pollution, it's something that a lot of the residents have been living with for decades now. And there just has not been a good solution to clean up these issues. So that's really what we're trying to do is not just shine a light on this, but to motivate people to motivate change. Say, hey, look, you know where your food comes from? All of us have a decision. But even individual choices aren't enough. We do need to change laws. We need to work together to get laws changed in this country to protect people and the environment.
Justine Reichman: Wow. Well, I am certainly looking forward to seeing this film next week. So with all the other things going on at this film festival next week, I'm sure you've looked at the list of other films coming up. What are you most looking forward to seeing as well?
“Even individual choices aren’t enough. We need to work together to change the laws to protect the people and the environment.” -Shawn Bannon
Shawn Bannon: Goodness, a lot of the other films I've actually seen already. I watch a lot of documentaries. I've watched all of them, but I'm just excited to go to the festival. I'm excited to meet the other filmmakers and talk to them. And I know the food I'm really coming for, like we have food and just hanging out with everybody, and getting to chat and being in the same space as everybody is really, really important. And talking about the movies. And the area too is just a beautiful part of this country. I love going to Northern California. Miyoko is so awesome. She's been super inspiring, and I hope to visit her sanctuary up there too.
Justine Reichman: Yeah, me too. She's very close to me so I'm looking forward to going to do that soon too. So for those that want to check out what you've worked on in the past, what you're going to be working on in the future and just learn about this project a little bit more, how might they go find you online?
Shawn Bannon: The best option for the movie is smellofmoneydoc.com. We have an Instagram, as well as Twitter which have the same URL. And for personal, shawnbannon.com, or go to my Vimeo account, which is shawnbannon@vimeo, I believe something like that.
Justine Reichman: We'll make sure to put it in the show notes. So Shawn, thanks so much for joining me today. I'm excited to meet you next week at the film festival. And for those that are not familiar with The Smell of Money, go check it out. And we're excited to see this film festival next week, so if you haven't gotten your tickets yet, make sure to check out the calendar, check out what's going on. There's a lot of great stuff going on at the film festival from Rancho Compasion and the list of films that will be screening and all the panels. So Shawn, thanks again for sharing a little bit about you, a little bit about the film and what we can expect.
Shawn Bannon: Cool. Thank you so much. I really appreciate having me on today.
Justine Reichman: I want to thank our guests for tuning in, whether you're watching the podcast or you're listening to whether it's the videocast or the podcast. We'll see you again. Thanks so much, Shawn.
