Community
Print
MILKED recently won Best Documentary at Monaco Streaming Film Festival. The movie exposes the detrimental impact of New Zealand’s dairy industry.
Founded last year, the Monaco Streaming Film Festival celebrates international content in the streaming industry, honoring producers and talent in the space. James Cameron, Mark Wahlberg’s Wahl Street, and 2022’s Gaslit were among the individuals and series also honored with an award. This year’s ceremony took place in Monte Carlo.
Backed by Suzy Amis Cameron, Jane Goodall, and Keegan Kuhn (the filmmaker behind 2017’s What the Health), MILKED shines a spotlight on dairy’s destructive practices. It follows Chris Huriwai, an activist, as he travels around New Zealand, which is known in Māori as Aotearoa. He speaks with ecology experts, farmers, medical professionals, and more to explore the root of dairy’s deepest problems.
According to director Amy Taylor, the team planned to focus on the environmental and health impact of all animal agriculture. “But once we got further into researching, it was obvious that dairy was the story to tell,” she said.
‘This is a global problem’
But it’s not all doom and gloom. The documentary also explores solutions to these problems. Plus, the filmmakers are taking action to get those solutions implemented. They’ve set up four petitions, for the UK, the US, the EU, and New Zealand, asking people to support their campaign to get governments to reduce dairy herds by 25 percent.
“What we uncovered in MILKED is terrifying: people and cows dying for profit; rivers polluted, nature being destroyed,” Huriwai and Taylor write in the petition. “We also revealed that New Zealand’s largest dairy producer, Fonterra, has been massively underreporting its greenhouse gas output. [It creates] more emissions than the whole of Sweden.”
“But this isn’t just about New Zealand,” they continue. “This is a global problem.”
The petitions will be delivered to world leaders at COP27. The United Nations climate change conference will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt this year.
Both Taylor and Huriwai hope the new award will help MILKED reach an even wider audience.
The film is available to stream now, and you can watch it on Plant Based News’ YouTube channel for free.
