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Doc explores food science behind ‘cutivated meat’

London-based MetFilm Sales has picked up world sales excluding Canada to Hot Docs entry Meat The Future and will introduce to buyers at the virtual Cannes market later this month.

Liz Marshall directed Meat The Future, which explores ‘cultivated meat’, a food science that grows real meat from animal cells, free from disease and infection and without the need to breed, raise and slaughter animals.

The film follows cardiologist Uma Valeti, the co-founder and CEO of ‘cultivated meat’ start-up Memphis Meats, as he builds his company and production prices drop from 2016, when a meatball cost $18,000 per pound.

Feature roster launches on June 2 weekly selection of films that have not received Us theatrical release.

Streaming platform Filmatique has launched the second edition of its Talents online programme featuring prize winners from San Sebastian and Sarajevo.

Starting on June 2 and continuing with a new film each week for the rest of the month, the New York-based online platform will showcase a noteworthy first or second feature by an emerging global filmmaker that has not yet received a Us theatrical release.

Films screen alongside shorts from directors of all experience levels, and each release will be paired with an exclusive interview with the director.

“Meat the Future” is a slightly goofy title for a film that takes its subject very, very seriously. The wordplay feels like a token flourish of whimsy in Liz Marshall’s quietly educational documentary about the rise of alternative, environmentally friendly but still animal-based meat, as if to gently beckon carnivorous viewers who might be expecting a dour lecture. That isn’t on the cards here, however. “Meat the Future” unfolds as a thorough and persuasive presentation for a cutting-edge product that it wants us to start thinking about in normalized terms; it’s got too much to explain and advocate to leave much time for moral repudiation. “Clean meat,” as cell-grown protein has been branded by the scientists developing it, is the future; Marshall’s doc treats the present as a formality to be politely put behind us.

Selected to premiere as a special presentation at Hot Docs — and...