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Natalie Portman debuts her new film 'Eating Animals'

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'Eating Animals', a documentary narrated and produced by Natalie Portman made its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival.

The feature length documentary, which received a standing ovation at its debut at the 44th festival in Colorado is an adaptation from Jonathan Safran Foer's New York Times bestselling book of the same name. Foer also co-wrote the film with Director Christopher Dillon Quinn.

Through intimate narrative the film reveals how the US over the past 40 years has moved away from traditional farming communities to the massive industrial farms that exist today. The audience is offered a graphic look at the realities of modern day factory farming and the methods used to mass produce cheap meat, dairy and eggs.

Quinn's covert camera manages to get inside the strictly off-limits food processing plants, something the documentary points out is illegal and could send one to prison, reported Deadline Hollywood.

"It was a risk, and it's weird to be called a 'terrorist.' It was a real eye-opener to actually see what farming was, which was people wanting to run from you, not wanting you to see they system that was in place, including these vertically integrated structures. They know deep in their core it is not right, but I actually think there is a lot of hope in that, the fact that they still know a guy with a camera shouldn't be coming around here because it is wrong."

When Foer published "Eating Animals" in 2009, "the anti-factory-farming and food-ethics manifesto, it inspired many people to adopt a vegan diet reports Forward.com. One of them was Natalie Portman, who took her inspiration one step further. After reading the book, Natalie went vegan and has publicly spoken about her vegan lifestyle. Upon contacting the book's author Natalie co-produced the film with director, Christopher Quinn.

Eating Animals screen capture Image by: Eating Animals movie trailer

"What starts out as a simple question - where does our meat come from? - quickly takes us down the rabbit hole of today's industrial animal agriculture and becomes an exploration of the ultimate stakes of eating animals, the destruction of farming, and the complete unwinding of the American mythos", IMDb describes.

Foer was happy that the film explored factory farming in a way the book could not. "I was kind of actually really thrilled about all the ways it departed from the book. It covered a lot of things I wish I had known about when I wrote it. Also a moving image can capture somebody's heart in a way that is different, not better or worse, than the way that a book can. Just to be able to linger on a farmer's face, and certainly the images inside farms, is incredibly persuasive but can also be challenging," Foer told Deadline Hollywood.

KPCC did an interview this week with Portman who commented on a line at the end of the film that says "You vote three times a day with your fork". She expanded on this concept:

"There's a reason that food, and food restrictions, are such a big part of every religion. Because it is a way that you can state what you believe in and what you care about three times a day. Voting is a statement of believing in something, caring about something, making decisions based on what you care about. And we eat three times a day, at least, and each time you do you're making a statement about your values."

'Eating Animals' the film, adds to a growing number of books and documentaries that reveal the horrific way animals are treated in factory farms and the animal agriculture industry. Hopefully more meat eaters will be inspired to go vegan.