Free Political Film Screenings Cinema Politica is a project organized by Montréal-based non-profit überculture, and comprises a network of several local film exhibition series across Canada, Europe and the USA.

The World According to Monsanto

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Montreal: EcoWorld
Wednesday February 4, 2009
Screening begins 18h30
Venue: 6767, Côte-des-Neiges Street (Community Centre)

After the screening, and to bring the issue of food security to a global context, MIE members will relate it with the outbreak of contaminated milk powder in China, and the heightened sense of awareness that followed with the Chinese consumers. The discussion will then be open to the audience who can freely express their interpretations of these realities, according to their cultural background.

The World According to Monsanto

Monsanto takes over the world, one farm at a time.

Marie-Monique Robin / Canada / 2008 / 109 min

With 17,500 employees, a 2006 sales figure of $7.5 billion and operations in 46 countries, Monsanto is the world leader in genetically modified organisms (GMOs), as well as one of the most controversial corporations in industrial history. Since its founding in 1901, the company has faced trial after trial due to the toxicity of its products, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polystyrene, devastating herbicides like Agent Orange, used during the Vietnam war, and bovine growth hormones, which are yet unauthorised in Canada and banned in Europe.

Today, Monsanto has reinvented itself as a “life sciences” company converted to the virtues of sustainable development. Thanks to its genetically modified seeds, engineered among other things to withstand Monsanto’s Roundup, the world’s bestselling herbicide, the company claims it wants to solve world hunger while reducing environmental damage. Where does the truth lie?

The World According to Monsanto pieces together the story of the St. Louis, Missouri, corporation, calling on hitherto unpublished documents and first-hand accounts by scientists, civil society representatives, victims of the company’s toxic activities, lawyers, politicians, and representatives of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency. Based on a three-year investigation in North and South America, Europe and Asia, the film tells the tale of an industrial empire that, thanks in part to misleading reports, collusion with the American government, pressure tactics and attempts at corruption, has become one of the world’s biggest seed manufacturers. It shows how the clean, green image conveyed by the company’s advertising serves as a smoke screen for Monsanto’s quest for market supremacy, to the detriment of global food security and environmental stability.