WHO FARTED?
2019 - CANADA - 79 MINUTES - COLOUR
A FILM BY ALBERT NERENBERG AND NIK SHEEHAN
A collaboration between acclaimed Canadian documentary filmmakers Nik Sheehan (FLicKeR, No Sad Songs) and Albert Nerenberg (You are What you Act, Laughology), Who Farted? is the world’s first climate change documentary comedy — and hopefully not its last.
Featuring an intercontinental cast of best-selling authors, climate scientists and master flatualists, Who Farted? suggests that understanding our place in nature is essential to our continued existence as a species. If we can’t deal with our own flatulence, how can we hope to comprehend the looming climate catastrophe?
While watching his twelve-year-old daughter’s school science project, Albert Nerenberg has a life-altering experience. The children describe how cow flatulence plays an outsized role in greenhouse gas generation. As the methane contained in bovine farts combines with CO2 pouring out of the world’s factories, automobiles and airplanes, it seems we are farting ourselves to oblivion. A frightened student, voice quavering, asks if farts will kill us all.
Albert, shaken by his daughter’s revelations, sets out to discover the truth — a decision reinforced after Albert personally witnesses climate disaster in his own neighbourhood.
Are farts malevolent? Disgusting? Beneficial? Hilarious? What exactly is a fart? And how much does animal flatulence truly contribute to runaway climate change?
From antiquity’s first fart joke to the ubiquitous whoopee cushion, the act of flatus both amuses and dismays... and now may contribute to civilization’s demise. Who Farted? is a frightening, illuminating, and funny journey through the absurd reality of 21st Century human survival.