Coming to OVID.tv today, Friday, December 6:
OVERLOAD: AMERICA’S TOXIC LOVE STORY
Director:
Soozie Eastman
World Premiere:
Rocky Mountain Women’s 2018
Select Festivals:
Flyover
About:
The filmmaker attempts to reduce the toxic substances in her body in preparation for having children.
Director Soozie Eastman, a former make-up artist and daughter of an industrial chemical distributor, is starting to contemplate having kids, but is concerned about all the chemicals she’s exposed to after she learns that newborns already have high levels of toxic substances in their bodies. She sets out to find out what toxins she’s carrying, and to see if she can reduce them through changing what she buys and eats. Borrowing heavily from the Morgan Spurlock school of documentary filmmaking, Eastman is not an unpleasant presence, but her film is very familiar, taking the same route countless other films have in putting the concerned filmmaker in the role of human guinea pig in an experiment on the impact of a given substance or industry – visiting experts, reviewing products, calling companies and getting stonewalled, providing advice and solutions to consumers, etc. It’s a well intentioned project, and Eastman tries to liven things up with some hokey animation, but feels overlong for what it is.
what (not) to doc 