With just under a month to go before the first ever UK Green Film Festival, the buzz is definitely building up!

Amongst the various films being presented, we’re most definitely excited about Planeat. Focusing on issues recently discussed by our guest blogger Lawrence Mitchell (6 steps to eating more sustainably), Planeat tells a story about three men’s life-long search for a diet that’s beneficial to our health, the environment and the planet, making a very persuasive case for the West to re-examine its love affair with meat and dairy. Featuring some ground-breaking work of Dr. T Colin Camp, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn and Professor Gidon Eshel, Planeat will be premiered at UKGFF2011. Here is the trailer -

PLANEAT.co.uk Trailer from planeat.co.uk on Vimeo.

We also caught up with Shelly Lee Davies, director of the feature length documentary to give you a sneaky-preview of what to expect.

GR = Green Rewards
SLD = Shelly Lee Davies

GR: Where did the inspiration(s) came from initially?

SLD: It started with my stomach!  I was lucky enough to have a meal cooked for me by Chef Chad Sarno, and it totally blew me away.  I had never eaten a meal and been so aware of the colours, textures and tastes before, and I was shocked to find it was completely made from plants. 

A few weeks later I was in a New York bookshop and was recommended 'The China Study' by Dr Colin Campbell.  It was a summary of his 40 years of research into the link between animal-based diets and disease.  After reading this, I was hooked on the subject and then started to look at how our heavily animal-based diet impacts our environment. 

 After subsequent arguments with my co-director, Or Shlomi, over what we should eat for lunch, we both realized how important the subject of food is, and what a powerful force dietary choice can be.  So we decided we had to make a film about it that would help change the world for the better. 

GR: So what message(s) were you trying to explore during production?

SLD: How does our heavily animal-based diet affect our health, our environment and our planet? And what can we do about it?

GR: In a perfect world, how do you make the right choice? Did you find an answer?

SLD: According to the scientists in our film, the further we move towards a plant-based diet, the better it will be for our health and for our environment.  It's up to each individual to decide how far to take it, but the major ask of the film is for people to eat less meat and dairy, and to be inspired by plant-based cuisine.

GR: I understand Planeat is in fact your first movie! How did you find it?

SLD: The two of us funded the whole production ourselves, which meant we had to work one job while trying to make the film in evenings and weekends, whenever we could get the time.  On top of that we are both first-time filmmakers so it was a very steep learning curve.  We started filming in October 2007, and for the first two years we were filming and editing this film on our own, and through a mix of sheer passion and stubbornness we managed to get a very rough cut of the film done. We showed this to Christopher Hird from Dartmouth Films, who then became our executive producer in 2009.  His experience and guidance has been invaluable in getting us through to where we are now with the film.  

GR: What did the team enjoy the most about making this film?

SLD: A camera gets you into places you would never otherwise be!  So being invited into the homes of the characters, living and eating with them was a great honour.  It was interesting that all three of the main characters in the film were brought up on either dairy or beef farms, and yet through decades of scientific research have a completely different view on the way we should eat and produce food.

GR: So tell us, any silly incidents during production?

SLD: Too many to tell!  We were in a field filming the cows, and one of the cows was so keen to get his close-up in he knocked off the camera mic…Using up all our cash to buy cupcakes so we didn’t have enough to pay the toll charge on the road…

GR: Are you excited about the premiering of your movie back here in the UK?

SLD: After working for three years on the film, pretty much in isolation, you start to think you’re a bit mad! So we are really happy to be getting the film out here, especially as it is currently touring 70 cities in the US, but it will mean the most to us to share the film in our own home country!