«Just eat it»: a documentary about the food we throw
A documentary that explores one of the most important environmental problems associated with the consumption and waste of recent times: the food that are discarded and can still take be eaten.
Why food that reaches its expiration date finds its destination in a garbage rather than being taken as soon as possible to a shelter or home to become perhaps the only meal of the day for a child? Why hundreds of bananas that do not meet the «standard of perfection» of marketing are excluded from the possibility of joining the commercial circuit? What is happening in the world as thousands of people still die (literally) of hunger, and other, more decision-making power directly opt to throw food in a basket?
After entertain and raise awareness with the great documentary production The Clean Bin Project on the amount of waste generated and the need to take responsibility for it, Canadian marriage Jen Rustemeyer and Grant Baldwin decided to pool their efforts and focus attention in a particular type of item, mistakenly, it was being considered in the market as waste: food. The result of this research and experimentation in the flesh (or mouth) itself is Just Eat It.
Following the documentary-reality line that characterized its first production, the couple took on the challenge of eating foods that are considered unfit for traditional marketing standards. But, unlike the first film experience, the second audiovisual production takes a more serious nature. «The Clean Bin Project was our first documentary and we worked very innocently. We just only try to register our experience. The second time, we wanted to make a film specifically with the seriousness it deserves, especially when you start talking about the problems of hunger and certain social and environmental problems that arise as a challenging issue», explains Rustemeyer.
Personal experience is combined perfectly with the information provided by specialists in the field and access to the same places of production, consumption and recycling. The Baldwin’ camera with a special lens show exactly the food processing, the decomposition of a fruit and it filled a refrigerator with «junk». Technology is combined with shooting from a helicopter on top providing shots of entire fields with focus placed on approaches and highlighting the audiovisual from the quality and diversity of techniques employed.
Just Eat It is a documentary that knows how to combine information and entertainment from a personal experience, without neglecting the seriousness of the environmental, social and political problems posed. It is a sign of the power of film as a medium of communication that now, once known the reality, we all start thinking about what we eat, what we buy, our importance as consumers … but responsable ones. Justemeyer is blunt about it: «You do not need much to be happy. No matter if it is to look after the environment, or because you want to have more free time in your life, or because you want to save money; all goes together and everything serves to stop consuming so much and reduce the waste we generate».
