Death on a Factory Farm wins the 2009 Genesis Award for Best TV Documentary

Length: (1:28)

Producers: TOM SIMON and SARAH TEALE

Edited by: GEOF BARTZ, A.C.E.

Music: JAMIE LAWRENCE         

Camera & Sound: TOM SIMON

Associate Producer: DAVID PONTILLO

Supervising Producer: JOHN HOFFMAN 

Executive Producer: SHEILA NEVINS

Three years in the making, Death On A Factory Farm follows “Pete,” an investigator who appeared in our 2006 HBO film Dealing Dogs, as he investigates charges of animal cruelty on a central Ohio hog farm. Wearing a hidden camera he documented numerous disturbing scenes including piglets being tossed into crates from across a room, an unhealthy piglet being slammed against a wall to euthanize it, and finally, sick sows being hung by a chain from a forklift until they choked to death. 

Based on the evidence Pete gathered, prosecutors filed ten charges of animal cruelty against the farm’s owners and one employee. Our cameras then take viewers inside the courtroom, where the prosecution and defense wage a tense battle over the legality and morality of practices rarely seen by the public.  The judge presiding over the case described them as “distasteful and offensive,” but farm owner Ken Wiles and other members of the tight-knit Ohio farming community defend as the commonplace reality of producing livestock for consumption.

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More about the film on Wikipedia