Toronto-based White Pine Pictures is producing a new feature documentary about the biological and environmental impact of microplastics.

Plastic People is helmed by director Ben Addelman and co-director Ziya Tong, who is featured in the doc and serves as executive consultant. Production, which is now underway, will take place in various locations in North America, Europe and Asia. The film is produced by Vanessa Dylyn (Into the Inferno), with White Pine Pictures president Peter Raymont and Canadian author and environmentalist Rick Smith as executive producers.

Funding for the documentary is coming from Telus’ pilot documentary film initiative, the Canada Media Fund, the CMF POV Fund, environmentally-focused investment company Dragonfly Ventures, and philanthropist Nona Macdonald Heaslip. It has a budget of approximately $1 million.

Plastic People follows Tong — author of The Reality Bubble and former co-host of Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet — as she exposes new revelations about the impact of microplastics on human health, according to a press release.

Raymont tells Playback Daily that he initially approached Smith in 2020 about a potential collaboration after reading a feature article he’d written about the topic in the Globe & Mail, which was formalized with Dylyn attached as producer by August that same year.

The doc is expected to wrap filming by mid-summer, according to Raymont, to be ready for the fall festival circuit, with plans for a theatrical release before its digital launch via Telus.

Tong said in a statement that the issue is an “environmental and human health horror story,” adding that she will be meeting with world-class plastics researchers and scientists “to reveal the enormity of the problem and uncover what we can do about it.”

Annabelle White, co-CEO and founder of Dragonfly Ventures, added that “this critical issue deserves to be better known by the public at large and it needs to be solved as quickly as possible. At a time when the world is finally moving forward with a new international treaty to scale back the plastics threat, Plastic People is a smart and engaging call to arms.”

Smith previously collaborated with White Pine Pictures on the Phyllis Ellis-directed documentary Toxic Beauty, produced by Raymont and Barri Cohen, which had its world premiere at the 2019 Hot Docs as part of its Big Ideas Programme. Toxic Beauty, which examined the way chemicals in cosmetics have caused serious illness, won several Canadian Screen Awards in 2021 and was nominated for an International Emmy Award.

Images courtesy of White Pine Pictures. From left to right: Peter Raymont, Ziya Tong, Ben Addelman