THE SMELL OF MONEY
SUN, 12/4, 2:00pm, 84 min SAG HARBOR CINEMA
Q/A with Director Shawn Bannon, Producer Jamie Berger in conversation with Susan Margolin
If seats are still available, tickets may be purchased at the festival desk. Cash or Credit cards only
Director: Shawn Bannon
Producers: Shawn Bannon, Jamie Berger
Editor: Shawn Bannon
Cinematographer: Shawn Bannon
A century after her grandfather claimed his freedom from slavery, Elsie Herring brings attention to the injustices and injuries caused by environmental racism literally in her backyard. When a corporate hog farm moves in—uninvited—on her grandfather’s land, Elsie decides to fight back. But as her rural community becomes the epicenter of the pork industry’s explosion in America, Elsie’s struggle to save her family’s home and heritage turns into a battle against Smithfield Foods, one of the world’s most powerful companies, and its deadly pollution.
“The smell of money”—that’s what Big Pork calls the stench of pig waste in the air in eastern North Carolina, where much of the world’s bacon and barbecue is made, one of the only states where it is legal to spray untreated hog waste into the air. But to Elsie and others who live near the state’s giant pig factories, the revolting odor is a call to battle against generations of injustice.
Shawn Bannon’s short films are The Green Knight Documentary and Bloody Barbara. The Smell of Money is his first feature documentary; it premiered at the Sarasota Film Festival in April of 2022 where it won the Documentary Feature Jury Prize.