The Smell of Money
A century after her grandfather claimed his freedom from slavery and the family land, Elsie Herring and her North Carolina community fight the world's largest pork corporation for their freedom to enjoy fresh air, clean water, and a life without the stench of manure.
Interview with Director/Producer/Editor Shawn Bannon
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
We made this film to highlight the great injustices of factory farming, specifically in North Carolina which has the highest concentration of factory farms in close proximity to where people live in the country, perhaps in the world.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
It's important to truly know where our bacon comes from, the people it impacts, the environmental disregard, and how the world's largest hog producer conducts its business.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
This is a David vs Goliath story. A small town going up against a billion-dollar corporation.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
The script and story were always evolving as we were following a 9-year lawsuit, extremely unexpected things happened and right when we thought we were done everything changed overnight. It was an absolutely heartbreaking film to work on.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
The support has been tremendous and really moving.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
Always, we're always taking feedback, and always learning. We worked with the community on the edit so this prepped us for a lot that was to come.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
We're looking to get our film to as big of an audience as possible and are most in need of larger distribution.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
Distributors and journalists, it would be nice to get some reviews!
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
We're starting a very big impact campaign and have already been playing at colleges and in impacted communities for the past 6 months. We hope this movie not only opens people's eyes to the environmental harms of factory farming but also inspires them to get laws changed to protect communities from this type of pollution.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Do we as consumers actually have a say in how our food is raised or do we need to start holding these corporate farms to higher standards?
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
Right now we're just focusing on The Smell of Money and keeping its momentum going. We've been very fortunate to have so many screening requests across the globe.
Interview: February 2023
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
The Smell of Money
A century after her grandfather claimed his freedom from slavery and the family land, Elsie Herring and her North Carolina community fight the world's largest pork corporation for their freedom to enjoy fresh air, clean water, and a life without the stench of manure.
Length: 1:24:00
Director: Shawn Bannon
Producer: Shawn Bannon and Jamie Berger
Writer: Jamie Berger
About the writer, director and producer:
SHAWN BANNON is an award-winning filmmaker whose films have 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.
JAMIE BERGER is a writer and documentary filmmaker born and raised in North Carolina. Her writing has been featured in Vox, The Guardian, USA Today, NowThis, The News & Observer, and more. Throughout her career, she has used writing and visual storytelling to draw attention to issues ranging from environmental racism to the climate crisis to other injustices wrought against people, animals, and the planet.
Key cast: Elsie Herring, Rene Miller, Don Webb, Mona Lisa Wallace, Naeema Muhammad, Cory Booker, Larry Baldwin, Rick Dove
Looking for: distributors
Facebook: The Smell of Money Documentary
Twitter: @smellofmoneydoc
Instagram: @smellofmoneydoc
Website: www.smellofmoneydoc.com
Other: IMDb
Funders: International Documentary Association, Sailor Bear
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month?
We have several film festivals but they haven't announced we're posting all screenings here smellofmoneydoc.com