Rainmaker Content to distribute Plastic People: The Hidden crisis of microplastics

Rainmaker Content, the international distributor that specialises in drama, factual and special-event programming, has acquired feature documentary Plastic People: The Hidden Crisis of Microplastics for international distribution prior to its premiere at SXSW Film & TV Festival on March 9, 2024.     

The 90-minute film investigates the global addiction to plastic and the growing threat of microplastics to human health. The film, which has its world premiere on March 9, is an official selection of the SXSW Festival 2024 Documentary Spotlight. Plastic People will also be screened at the United Nation’s critical next round negotiations for a new Global Plastics Treaty, which takes place next month in Ottawa.

Plastic People is produced by Vanessa Dylyn (Into the Inferno) and Stephen Paniccia, with White Pine Pictures’ president Peter Raymont and Canadian author and environmentalist Rick Smith as executive producers. Funding for the documentary comes from TELUS Communication’s pilot documentary film initiative, TELUS independent; the Canada Media Fund; the CMF POV Fund; Telefilm Canada; and philanthropists including Dragonfly Fund, Chisholm Thomson Family Foundation and Nona Macdonald Heaslip.

Because plastic is such a robust material, it never really disappears. Only 10% of plastic has been recycled — the other 90% still exists somewhere on Earth, degrading slowly into smaller and smaller ‘microplastics’. These microscopic particles drift in the air, float in bodies of water and mix into the soil, becoming a permanent part of the environment. Groundbreaking first-time-on-film testing of toxicity levels of microplastics in the human body reveals how these particles are being found in our organs, blood and even the placentas of new mothers. Plastic People interrogates the impact of these invisible invaders on our health and asks what can be done about it. 

Acclaimed author and science journalist Ziya Tong is co-director of the film. She takes a personal approach, visiting leading scientists around the world and undergoing experiments in her home and on her food and body, while collaborating with award-winning director Ben Addelman (Discordia, Bombay Calling, Nollywood Babylon, Kivalina v. Exxon). Plastic People is an urgent call to action for all of us to rethink our relationship with plastic.

Rainmaker Content’s key executives, Greg Phillips and Vicky Ryan, have collaborated with White Pine Pictures for almost 20 years. During their time at Content Film/Kew, Phillips and Ryan represented a string of internationally successful projects, including The Border, a hard-driving TV drama series set in a paranoid post-9/11 world; the feature documentary Toxic Beauty; and Margaret Atwood: A Word After a Word After a Word is Power. Plastic People has been positioned as the follow-up film to Toxic Beauty.

Greg Phillips co-CEO of Rainmaker Content, said: 'Plastic pollution is not just an environmental problem, it’s an urgent threat to human health. Plastic People is the first film ever to explore comprehensively on camera the worrisome true dimensions of the plastics crisis. It underlines the challenge and points to solutions in the most engaging of ways'.

This latest addition to the Rainmaker slate follows hard on the heels of a representation deal with another prolific Canadian producer, No Equal, which will see Rainmaker help package and place three new scripted drama series: The Collector: Redux, The Work and Erratic.

LC