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Plastic People
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TYPE: Documentary Feature
GENRE: Documentary
STATUS: Production
LOGLINE
Plastic People is a landmark feature documentary that chronicles one woman’s mission to expose shocking new revelations about the impact of microplastics on human health.
SYNOPSIS
Microplastics are toxic particles, forming an invisible layer of pollution, that has permeated the atmosphere and encircled the globe. These particles are a permanent feature in our oceans, air, water, soil and food. More importantly, scientists are finding microplastics in our bodies: in human organs, blood, even in the placentas of new mothers.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
Plastic People is structured as one woman’s journey to expose the risk that microplastics pose to human health. The film begins with Ziya coming to realize that she may have been wrong to concentrate on visible plastic pollution all these years and that the real threat comes from insidious, invisible microscopic plastic. As Ziya’s journey unfolds she will test herself for plastic. In Rochester NY she meets Nathan Eddingsaas & Christy Tyler, two scientist who have been studying microplastics in our food chain for a decade. Their lab is one of the first in the world to look specifically for traces of plastic in living people. It’s an awkward way to make an introduction, but in their very first meeting, Ziya Tong hands over bottled samples of her feces to Nathan Eddingsaas and Christy Tyler at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Along with her special sample Ziya shares a journal of her meals over that time. Some salmon (sold wrapped in plastic), a tuna sandwich (canned tuna), bottled water, coffee and tea. There’s nothing extraordinary in the list but as she will soon discover, these are all sources of microplastics. The fecal material is steeped in various solutions to dissolve the organics within, until only a fine powder remains. Using a high-powered microscope and tweezers, Nathan sifts through it, looking for tell-tale signs of plastic: little fibers and tiny multi-coloured pellets. A large display connected to the microscope reveals them to Ziya. The real concern for Ziya – and for our health – is how much plastic is entering our bodies and not getting expelled. There’s good reason to believe that microplastics can find their way out of our gut and into our bloodstream. And if they are in the air we breathe, they are likely in our lungs. Armed with this unsettling discovery, Ziya sets out from the lab with questions: can plastic build up in our system and do damage? Could it break down inside us and leach out toxic chemicals? And where did all this plastic in her body come from?
KEY CREW
Ben Addeleman - Director
Ben Addelman is the director of multi-award winning feature documentaries, including Nollywood Babylon, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival. He has directed television for top streamers and broadcasters including Apple TV+, Disney +, BBC, Netflix, Viceland, CBC, Sundance Channel and National Geographic. He was a director and producer on the landmark documentary series Becoming You, narrated by Olivia Colman, for Apple TV+. He is one of the directors on the upcoming Disney+ / National Geographic co-production docuseries Limitless, executive produced by Darren Aronofsky. He also directed for the upcoming Netflix true crime anthology series.
Ziya Tong - Co-Director
Award-winning science journalist Ziya Tong has been sharing her passion for science, nature and technology for almost two decades. Best known as the co-host of Daily Planet, Discovery Canada’s flagship science program, she brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm to her work. In her riveting, eye-opening talks Tong speaks on leadership, how to shift perspective, and the role of science and technology in society. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the World Wildlife Fund.
Tong also served as host and field producer for PBS’ national primetime series, Wired Science, produced in conjunction with Wired Magazine. In Canada, Tong hosted CBC’s Emmy-nominated series ZeD, a pioneer of open-source television, for which she was nominated for a Gemini Viewer’s Choice Award. In 2019, Tong released her bestselling book The Reality Bubble. It takes readers on a journey through the hidden things that shape our lives in unexpected and sometimes dangerous ways.
Vanessa Dylyn - Producer
Vanessa Dylyn is a successful, Emmy- nominated, and Canadian Screen Award-winning producer of high concept international factual programming. Recently released is The Divided Brain for the CBC’s Documentary Channel, a feature-length film featuring renowned psychiatrist Dr Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary.
Her recent documentary credits include Into the Inferno, a Werner Herzog co-production about man’s relationship with volcanoes for Netflix; Undercover Jihadi for TVO, an international film featuring Mubin Shaikh, a reformed Jihadi whose court testimony sent eleven Jihadists to prison; a UK co-production The Woman Who Joined the Taliban, for the CBC, Leslie Caron: the Reluctant Star, an arts documentary on the career of the star of An American in Paris, for ARTE and TVO. Now in production is her series concept, developed for Entertainment One, Arctic Vets.
Other notable credits are The Musical Brain, featuring Sting and other stars Feist, and Michael Buble, a highly popular film for CTV/Nat Geo International, about how the brain reveals why music is so important to us. The Mystery of San Nicandro, a feature CBC documentary that reveals the story of mass conversion to Judaism in a small town in Italy.
Other credits include development producer on the ARTE documentary Prokofiev: The Unfinished Diary, winner of the prestigious Czech Crystal Award. And producer of the film Made in Canada: the Italian Way on the Italo-Canadian entrepreneurial spirit.
Dr. Rick Smith - Co-Producer
Rick Smith has been the Executive Director of the Broadbent Institute since 2013. Under his leadership, the Institute has grown into Canada’s pre-eminent progressive policy and training organization.
A prominent Canadian author, environmentalist and non-profit leader, Rick is the Executive Director of the Broadbent Institute.
From 2003 to 2012, he served as Executive Director of Environmental Defence where he was an early advocate of an environmentalism rooted in new, sustainable, economic models. He was a key proponent of the Ontario Greenbelt and the Ontario Green Energy Act and a founding Director of the Greenbelt Foundation. Rick led the efforts to create Canada’s modernized Consumer Product Safety Act and Chemicals Management Plan, which resulted in Canada becoming the first nation in the world to ban bisphenol A in children's products.
Rick is the co-author of two bestselling books on the health effects of pollution: Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health (2009) and Toxin Toxout (2014). A Quill & Quire “Book of the Year”, Slow Death by Rubber Duck has been featured by the Washington Post (which said it “is hard-hitting in a way that turns your stomach and yet also instills hope”), Dr. Oz, Fox News, and Oprah Magazine, and translated into seven languages. The 2019 re-issue of “Slow Death by Rubber Duck” has sparked a renewed debate on the presence of bisphenol A in consumer items.
Peter Raymont - Producer/EP
Founded 44 years ago by Emmy-Award filmmaker, Peter Raymont, White Pine Pictures is a Toronto-based film and television production company. Its documentary feature films include the Emmy and Sundance award-winning Shake Hands with the Devil and the Oscar short-listed Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould and A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman. White Pine Pictures recently produced the TIFF 2022 Opening Night Documentary Film, Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry it On and the TIFF 2019 Opening Night Gala Film, Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band, Toxic Beauty, which aired on Starz in April 2020 and season two of CBC’s In the Making. Margaret Atwood: A Word after a Word after a Word is Power premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam in 2019 and is now streaming on Hulu. White Pine also produced the widely broadcast TV drama series The Border & Cracked.
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