Award-winning director Gabriela Cowperthwaite (BLACKFISH) takes viewers inside a seismic story that has largely gone unnoticed by much of the world. Cowperthwaite follows journalist Nate Halvorsen at the Center for Investigative Reporting on an eight-year investigation that begins when a Chinese company purchases Smithfield Hams in 2014. A mysterious and massive leak of documents subsequently prompts Halvorsen and his colleagues to follow the money trail. It leads to Beijing, where they discover that the Chinese government bankrolled the purchase of Smithfield, giving Beijing ownership of one in four American pigs.

Digging deeper, they discover that China is hardly alone. Quietly and seemingly out of sight, governments, private investors and mercenaries are working to seize food and water resources at the expense of entire populations. Anticipating food and water shortages at home, they are drawing lessons from the Arab Spring and other moments of civil unrest that accompanied rising food prices. Any nation, the saying goes, is only nine meals away from revolution.

Relying on interviews with military and political analysts, THE GRAB posits that in the not-too-distant future, world powers will be those who control access to food and water, which will be seen as vital to stability at home.

THE GRAB is a global thriller combining hard-hitting journalism from The Center for Investigative Reporting with compelling character-driven storytelling by Cowperthwaite, taking you around the world from Arizona to Zambia, to reveal one of the world’s biggest and least known threats.

Screening followed by Q&A with producer Amanda Pike and protagonist/producer Nate Halverson.