I stumbled upon the trailer for a documentary about genetically modified food titled, Scientists Under Attack. When I decided to buy the DVD, I discovered that it was not available in the United States. I had been doing research about Monsanto and learning about the science behind GMO's, and what I learned was that a lot of information on the topic was being suppressed. Each question that arose in my mind led to another question and before long, I was reading many books and studying the work of Vandana Shiva, Jeffery Smith and Bertram Verhaag.

I wrote to Bertram Verhaag, a German film director of 9 films about GMO's, in the hopes that I could interview him about his work. He not only granted me an interview, he sent me his DVD, a hand-written letter, all for free. His films are not sensational doom porn. They are documentaries. There are a lot of interviews with scientists, farmers and officials who are directly related to policy surrounding GMO's. Scientists Under Attack illustrates perfectly what happens when 95% of scientists whom are researching genetically modified organisms are being funded by corporations. The remaining 5% of independent scientists who decided to do GMO research on their own are extremely vulnerable and the film shows this vulnerability very well. This film was one of the first to really wake me up.

Here's the trailer for Scientists Under Attack: Genetic Engineering in The Magnetic Field of Money

Here's the link to the film preview auf Deutsch: http://www.onlinefilm.org/en_EN/film/52070

The most shocking thing I learned during these interviews is that Monsanto tried to remove his film from German television.

He said that Monsanto officials came to a German TV station unannounced and told the station to quit airing Verhaag's documentary. Monsanto took him to court in an attempt to silence him, but the courts ended up dismissing the case after it was concluded that Verhaag's film was indeed factual.

Here are the 4 parts of my Skype interview with German filmmaker, Bertram Verhaag:

Scientists Under Attack has won the following awards:

(2010) THE INDIE FEST 2010: BEST DOCUMENTARY, La Jolla
(2010) TOP TEN FILMS AT KANSAS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, Kansas
(2010) AT&T AWARD FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION AND STEWARDSHIP, Los Angeles
(2010) THE COLUMBUS INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY JOURNALISM AWARD, Columbus
(2010) ACCOLADE AWARD: BEST DOCUMENTARY
(2010) BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY AT MAVERICK MOVIE AWARDS, Meriden
(2010) BEST ORIGINAL SCORE AT MAVERICK MOVIE AWARDS, Meriden
(2011) SALUS JOURNALIST AWARD, Munich

There's a lot of controversy surrounding GMO's but until you've really reasearched it, and I mean done some serious digging, you won't really understand it very well. Dr. Vandana Shiva is a great resource as well because she was a physicist at the time when she learned about Monsanto's goal of patenting all the seeds on earth. That was the moment when she began her work in protecting organic biodiversity and founded her institute. When Bertram Verhaag learned about Monsanto's development of a Terminator Seed, that's when he began to become interested in creating films about GMO's.

Thanks for your attention,
Stellabelle