Natalie Portman-Narrated Eating Animals Film Debuts

New vegan-leaning documentary Eating Animals—which was produced and narrated by vegan actress Natalie Portman—debuted at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado last weekend. Portman was inspired to adopt a vegan diet after reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals and contacted the author to create a documentary based on his book. The film follows the book’s premise of exposing animal abuse inherent in factory farming but adds visual elements that Foer said help to further expose the truth behind animal agriculture. “I was kind of actually really thrilled about all the ways it departed from the book,” Foer told media outlet Deadline. “It covered a lot of things I wish I had known about when I wrote it. Also, a moving image can capture somebody’s heart in a way that is different, not better or worse, than the way that a book can.” A vegan reception was held for the film’s first screening, which received a standing ovation. Later this month, the Environmental Media Association will honor Portman with an Ongoing Commitment Award for her work on the documentary.