London-based Rainmaker Content has picked up White Pine Pictures’ feature doc Plastic People: The Hidden Crisis of Microplastics for international distribution prior to the film’s world premiere at the SXSW Film & TV Festival in Austin, Texas.

The film is produced by Vanessa Dylyn (Into the Inferno) and Stephen Paniccia, with White Pine president Peter Raymont and Canadian author and environmentalist Rick Smith as executive producers.

Author and science journalist Ziya Tong co-directs the film with Ben Addelman (Discordia).

Funding comes from Telus Communications’ pilot documentary film initiative, Telus independent; the Canada Media Fund; the CMF POV Fund; Telefilm Canada; and philanthropists such as the Dragonfly Fund, Chisholm Thomson Family Foundation and Nona Macdonald Heaslip.

The 90-minute film tackles our global addiction to plastic and the growing threat of microplastics to human health. It will world premiere on Saturday (March) 9 as an official selection of the SXSW festival’s 2024 Documentary Spotlight.

Plastic People will also be screened at the United Nations’ next round of negotiations for a new Global Plastics Treaty next month in Ottawa.

“Plastic pollution is not just an environmental problem, it’s an urgent threat to human health,” said Rainmaker Content co-CEO Greg Phillips in a statement. “Plastic People is the first film ever to explore comprehensively on camera the worrisome true dimensions of the plastics crisis. It underlines the challenge and points to solutions in the most engaging of ways.”

Image courtesy of Rainmaker Content