31 May Vitamania: a glimpse inside the chaotic world of vitamins and supplements
YouTube host Derek Muller teams up with award-winning producers for a rip-roaring ride through the sense and nonsense of vitamins and supplements.
Worldwide, there are more than 850,000 vitamin and dietary supplements on the market today, fuelling an obsession with health and generating revenue of more than $100 billion annually. But where is the evidence that any given potion or pill delivers the promises plastered on the bottle?
That’s the central question driving Vitamania, a feature-length film that won the Best Documentary in this year’s SCINEMA.
Writer, director and producer, Sonia Pembarton says the film doesn’t want to sway people one way or the other.
“Fundamentally the film isn’t trying to debunk them, or celebrate them. There’s lots of people who think you can dismiss vitamins … but it’s not that simple.”
Hosted by Derek Muller – who also fronts the extremely successful YouTube science channel Veritasium – Vitamania traverses several continents and a couple of centuries, investigating the roots of our fascination with vitamins, and sorting the hope from the hype buried in the claims made for their efficacy.
In a story that encompasses Nobel Prize-winning research, corporate secrecy, snake oil salespeople and, astoundingly, cases of scurvy in modern day America, Muller sets out to empower consumers to make reasoned and informed decisions about vitamins — decisions that can save money but might also save lives. Because vitamins, we discover, are not benign. They are biologically active compounds. We need to know what they do. We need to take them seriously.
See excerpts from Vitamania and other films at this years SCINEMA festival. Premiere screenings will take place at cinemas around Australia from 28 May to 13 June.
See a compilation of the award-winning films and festival entries in an amazing two-hour viewing experience, celebrating science on the big screen.