Shawn Stratton, founder and director of The International Vegan Film Festival.

Shawn Stratton

Wed, 11/3 4:26PM • 54:36

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

vegan, films, people, year, festival, world, cookbooks, film festival, filmmakers, canada, absolutely, terms, veganism, thinking, podcast, called, industry, event, bit, tropical fish

SPEAKERS

Jim Moore, Shawn Stratton

Jim Moore  00:05

This is a bloody vegans production radar Hello, my name is Jim, this is my podcast the bloody vegans, you're very welcome to it. Each week I'll be travelling ever deeper into the world of veganism discovering along the way, a multitude of viewpoints from the political and ethical to the practical. I'll be doing this through a series of conversations, each aiming to further illuminate my understanding, and hopefully yours of all things plant century. And this week is no different. This week, I'm going to be chatting with the founder and director of the International vegan Film Festival that Shawn Stratton, the keen eyed amongst you will remember that at Shawn is a former guest of the podcast from back in the day, September 2020, I think. And so it's great to have him back. The festival starts on October 30, which is tomorrow, I believe, and run through to November 7, and is virtual again for the second year in a row, listeners of the bloody vegans can get a 50% discount off an all access pass, all you need to do is head over to www dot the i's V f f.com. That's the IV, F f.com. And use the code BV when you're purchasing an all access pass. And that allows you to add to watch 30 Plus live changing vegan films over the course of the seven days of the film festival at your leisure. So do go and do that that would be wonderful. If you'd also like to support the podcast in any way you can do if you're an apple podcast listener, you can use Apple podcast subscriptions that are built into the app, you'll see there is a subscribe button on your podcast platform on your podcast app. And it's 99 per month and you can get early access to episodes and all kinds of different things as we go along and figure that out a little bit more. Also, if you'd like to head over to Patreon and search for bloody vegans podcasts, there's some wonderful ways in which you can support the podcast there too. So to go and do that. Anyway, let's get on to the matter in hand. Without further ado, here's a conversation between me and Sean Stratton, the founder and director of the International vegan Film Festival. Hey Shawn, so I think you are our third ever I want to say repeat guest on the vegans podcast. Yeah. So awesome to have you here. Fantastic to speak to you again, obviously. Last time we spoke was September 2020. A great deal of world events etc. have gone on since then all all kinds of different things in everybody's world. But before we go any further, I think it would be good to for folks who haven't perhaps come across the first episode perhaps don't know about you in your background. And what brought you to veganism? It would be it'd be great to start there.

Shawn Stratton  03:30

Yeah. Well, thanks for having me. It's great to be back on. I'm honoured to be a repeat guest on on this podcast. And yeah, it's been over a year, just over a year. What brought me to veganism? I guess like a lot of middle aged males or wives brought us there. But yeah, it was It wasn't really on my on my radar at the time. This is probably 2015 I've always kind of been a healthy eater been an endurance athlete. And, you know, I wasn't never, I was never a foodie. I used to lead expeditions. And so leaving the expeditions for months at a time would go without me and then it was never a big deal. And I was happy to cut back and then my wife I think was training for a marathon and was having some injuries and heard a podcast, something about you know, anti inflammatory benefits of eating a plant based diet that might help you with injuries and things like that. She was like, I'll try anything. No, I think and she did a bit of research and found Colleen Patrick Goudreau, and went overnight on a 30 day challenge and had never looked back. And it kind of caught me by surprise. I was like, oh, okay, cuz I was kind of the one I do most of the cooking in the family and the one that usually setting the menu and trying to eat healthier and every now and then she'd throw in, you know, some other now unhealthier dishes and once I was like, All right, so it took me about three months though to come on board myself. I was like, you know support you through this 30 Day Challenge. And, you know, when I'm out, I'll do whatever, you know, whatever I want. And as I started to do more research and watch more documentaries, and for me, what thing put me over the edge was Forks Over Knives, which is such a popular film at that time. And so it was definitely the health aspect at that time. But once you kind of get involved in the community and read and learn more, it's so many other aspects and I'm definitely one of those people that fall into the category of company Anna, come for your health stay for the animals approach to veganism. And so yeah, here we are today, but we haven't looked back. Now we've got three kids that are vegan as well as

Jim Moore  05:40

our super stuff. stupid stuff. I share that with you. Not three, but I've got one he's only three and a half. But as so he knows at this stage. Absolutely. And the vegan festival vegan Film Festival,

Shawn Stratton  05:56

is it full? Yeah. This year? Yep. Second, virtual

Jim Moore  06:00

incredible. Incredible. Again, you know, some folks who haven't heard the first episode might not know about it be good to get a little bit of the background behind. Yeah,

Shawn Stratton  06:10

so the vegan Film International, the International vegan Film Festival, that's our title. We started in 2018. With that time, we were called for the first year and a bit a year and a half, we were called Ottawa international vegan Film Festival ended up changing that because some of our world tour hosts were getting some confusion on their marketing. People. They were trying to host screenings and people are like, Well, I'm not in Ottawa. Why would I call? But yeah, we started it in 2018. The idea came, I guess, in 2017, when I was looking to find a way to get involved in the vegan community, and how I could serve the vegan community with my skills, talents, experiences. And I thought about running a Veg Fest. And at that time, we had a newborn baby and two other kids. And once I learned more about Veg Fest, and the amount of work that they take to pull off, I was like, Whoa, I don't think I have the capacity for that right now. And I kept researching and the idea of a film festival kept coming to me, one because I'm really inspired by a film festival here in Canada called the Banff mountain Film Festival. And it's, it's at a mountain adventure film festival. It's been going for 35 years or so. And they do a film festival each October. But then they also have a world tour where they do screenings around the world with their festival. And I was like, well, maybe there's a vegan Film Festival out there that I can bring to Ottawa, Canada, where I am now. And I could show that that'd be a one off weekend and be easy peasy. And it'll be great. And I did some research and I'm like, Whoa, I can't find any vegan film festivals there. There were none. And so that, I guess was the moment when I said well, I guess I got to do this have a why not? Let's let's figure this out. Someone's got to do it. And dove into it. And you know, talk to some friends talk to some mentors, and did a lot a lot of learning and research on how to how to run this event. My background isn't in filmmaking isn't in festivals. You know, I've done some event planning some triathlons, things like that, and planned wilderness expeditions for years. That's kind of my previous career. So I wasn't afraid of hard work and learning and dove into it to see if there was even you know, an interest for this.

Jim Moore  08:17

Oh, there certainly is no, no doubt. What Why do you think you know, you mentioned Forks Over Knives there. And I know Cowspiracy was central to my story. For a lot of folks. You know, since we last spoke, there's been I think game changes was after we last spoke cease piracy, and a whole host. You know, those are just the probably the biggest breakout commercial ones that we see because they're on Netflix and so on. But there are so so many more. What Why do you think filmmaking specifically centred around kind of vegan topics has become this, this kind of very powerful, important medium?

Shawn Stratton  08:50

Yeah, well, many different reasons. I'm sure. I think, you know, overall, in general, veganism has grown by leaps and bounds over the last, you know, 10, five, and even two years. And so with the popularity of just the movement and the understanding of plant based diets and the vegan movement, I think more filmmakers are becoming interested in it. There's more filmmakers that are becoming vegan that want to do vegan topics. And and it's you know, it's like a vegan business owner they say you know, the vegan business owner always has one kind of one kind of rabbit in their hat that they can pull out that a lot of other business owners can't is that is complete and utter passion for the cars that they're working on. A lot of business owners don't have that they might really enjoy what they're doing and like the product they make but that that veganism passion is something another level you know and and filmmakers are the same way they're not just you know, taking another job from from somebody not taking a job but doing another job or shoot that that someone's contracted them to do or wants them to film it's we're filming this because I am passionate about this topic and the more filmmakers that become vegan that are learn about it. I'm sure obviously there's going to be more and more. And then there's just so many storylines. There's so many avenues that lend itself to quality filmmaking, you know, there's some filmmakers, maybe not vegan, but the storyline that they're doing based on environment or based on health, or what have you, really lends itself to a vegan themed film.

Jim Moore  10:22

Absolutely, I wanted to ask about, you know, use it as a leadership coach, you know, in your sort of prior world and, and how you kind of brought that, you know, very much into this space, too. And I'm just, it just sort of occurred to me, you know, as a leadership coach, who's started, the vegan Film Festival, had continued success in the face of all kinds of adversity, you know, COVID, specifically, you know, as a big old swerve in your plans. What what do you think it's kind of its tool?

Shawn Stratton  10:56

Yeah, so, so many things, you know, and kind of a small part of kind of jumping into this film festival and taking it on was, yeah, I do leadership consulting, and I do keynote speaking on leadership topics. And that's a big passion of mine, as well. And as a, as a leadership speaker and expert in that field. I felt that, you know, it's been a while since I've been in leadership positions, I've been doing a lot of consulting, but as a, you know, a small, you know, home office run business, I don't have a team anymore. I'm not leaving wilderness expeditions these days. And so I wanted to, you know, put your money where the mouth is, like, if you're going to be leadership speaker, you should probably be in a leadership position on something. And so that was a small part of like, hey, let's, let's get back into the leadership. And I love that role. And let's take things on. And so that was kind of a little bit of a getting into it. But things that I've learned, I think, I think it's a lot of learning, but a lot of kind of reiterating those skills that you teach, whether it's, you know, perseverance, perseverance, and communication are kind of the two things that keep coming up. And just creativity and looking for new ways to do things. And you know, when one block comes up, you go around that and find another block, and you go around that, and you learn new ways to do things. And, you know, in this last year, I'm thrilled to tell you that we've become a registered nonprofit in Canada. And our donations and sponsorship, have increased our budget, almost six times what it was last year, just in one year. So that's, you know, been monumental for the festival this year in terms of the expansion and growth and the impact that we're able to have.

Jim Moore  12:39

Absolutely didn't congratulations, World War and incredible success in the face of all that kind of adversity. Thinking about, you know, the way you've managed to pivot, you've pivoted the festival from this physical platform, that Ottawa Film Festival through to what it is now, which is a truly, you know, a truly kind of global event. And I just, I just wonder like that What, how it's how it's kind of felt for you in terms of the expedited explosion, if you like, and exposure in the growth? You know, it was was that daunting at first, or was it actually kind of a, I don't want to say anything come out of COVID unnecessary blessing in disguise. But was there kind of that pivot, that forced move, actually kind of has has had some unintended benefits?

Shawn Stratton  13:28

Well, yeah, I don't think it hasn't been overwhelming yet. I wait for the day when we have too many films coming in. And I have to say, no, no, we've reached our capacity. But you know, there's definitely still, as much as I am immersed in this world of the film festival, there's still a lot of people that don't know about it, and a lot of filmmakers that don't know about it. And so sure enough, like every year towards deadline of the film submission date, I'm going out there, and I'm still knocking on doors, and I'm finding films that I think would be a good fit and encouraging people to apply. And so I'm still you know, at that stage, this year, we had 43 films from all over the world. That's up from a couple of from last year. So, you know, between the kind of second and third year, we had the biggest jump wasn't as much of a big jump this year. But I was happy to get up to 43 films, especially with COVID. I think it's reduced the amount of films that are coming out in the last couple years. And so in terms of that hasn't been overwhelming. The budget. No, that hasn't been overwhelming. And either we want to we want to grow it even way more. Because, you know, you can only do so much. We can only do so much marketing and promotion with the budget you have and we've got a big world to cover out there. So, yeah, no, I felt it's been it's been a great step in terms of being able to expand our reach and our coverage, but I think there's still a lot more we can do.

Jim Moore  14:53

This this year, the festival like me, like every year, to be fair, has got this incredibly diverse kind of set. Have a film's out there, you know, a really eclectic kind of slate, is there been any kind of real standouts for you in terms of maybe the subject matter? That's kind of actually, you know, taking you back a little bit from what you've seen?

Shawn Stratton  15:14

Yeah, yeah, one of our one of our feature films is dark hobby, which was a really interesting take that I hadn't really thought about or seen before. And it, it focuses on the tropical fish industry in Hawaii, and the commercialization of tropical fish and aquariums. And so there's a huge industry in Hawaii of these people, some illegally, some legally harvesting, you know, beautiful tropical fish for people to put in their aquariums at home, and hotels and restaurants and wherever. And just the whole amount of destruction that causes you know, environmentally, and obviously animal welfare and welfare. Just an example, the, you know, these beautiful tropical fish that that live in the coral reefs of off Hawaii, they're essential to the ecosystem like any animal is, but in that situation, you know, they, they feed on a lot of the algae that's on the coral reef, and if the algae is not being eaten, then that's going to smother the coral. And the coral is going to die off. And they're seeing effects of this right now. And as well as other things they do, they do some blasting down there, to get the fish up. The you know, the destruction that they have with the fish in terms of a clip there, they clip their fins, so they don't poke holes in plastic bags when they're being shipped. I think there's something like 90% of them die probably within the first year of being shipped. So that was a really interesting film to you know, really open my eyes, that whole industry. Yeah,

Jim Moore  16:41

yeah, I can I can imagine I can imagine thinking about like, you know, films, like, you know, we mentioned cease piracy earlier. And, and obviously the this this one here with the with the kind of tropical fish, etc. Do you do you find that sometimes these the big breakout films have had an impact on other filmmakers where they want to tell other stories that are kind of interconnected? Sure.

Shawn Stratton  17:01

Yeah, I think, you know, filmmakers are always looking for new ideas. And I think from these films that have a common theme in terms of animal welfare, environmental kind of vegan theme, that it always spawning new ideas of, hey, that's an avenue, I can take it. And that's an avenue, I can take it in. And, and I'm sure that you get inspired by seeing other films that think like, wow, that had a real impact on me, you know, what can I create to, to make that similar impact on others? And it's really been neat. I'm doing a bunch of q&a sessions in the last couple of weeks that we're going to post during the virtual Festival, and and just hearing from the filmmakers, and what inspires them and where they get their ideas. It's, it's amazing.

Jim Moore  17:43

Yeah, I can imagine, I can imagine, just thinking, you know, from you personally, you've obviously gotten, you know, immersed in all of these different films over the years. Have you seen any particular increase in certain subject matter? You know, whether it be environmental or, you know, have you seen a particular uptick in any one

18:03

area, I would say, definitely, our overwhelming majority of films that get submitted are from the animal welfare, animal advocacy, as we call our category side of things, for many different reasons, and probably even a bit more now, even with COVID. A lot of them are shorter, more that the health and nutrition films tend to be more feature films. And so naturally, there's not going to be as many feature films that come out in the run of a year then say short films that are 1015 20 minutes long. They're just generally quicker to make, not necessarily easier or cheaper, but but, but a little bit quicker. And so animal welfare is definitely up there. One neat thing that I'm finding with the animal welfare type films is that they're really evolving and the quality is just going way up. In terms of the storytelling. In the past, we'd get a lot of kind of undercover kind of shock and awe, blood and guts kind of films from from slaughter houses, things like that, which do need to be seen and are very disturbing. We try to limit the amount of films that we have that we don't definitely don't, you know, cut them off and not show them we do show some. But what I'm finding now is that it's more than that, because people either have seen that before, or they just shut off their their minds, but are their eyes when that's happening. But right now, I think these high quality filmmakers are coming up with better stories to tell without having to show that but, you know, letting people know what's happening. And so there's a film this year called the source that Chris Schubert has done from the UK, and where they take a restaurant owner that's recently becoming vegan, and Matthew Glover who's started Veganuary and as a vegan investor, and they go undercover in a in a slaughterhouse to let this Andrew Lyons the restaurant owner experience what it's like to be in as he calls a chicken shed with 1000s and 1000s of chickens and they go undercover in the middle of the night and they do this and they Filmed at all. And so that just wasn't like, Hey, here's a chicken slaughterhouse this is what's going on behind the scenes, it was a story, it was a, it was a beautifully crafted story, to pull out that message. And so that's what's happening now is they're really pushing the storytelling to get their message across instead of just, you know, the blood and guts.

Jim Moore  20:20

Yeah, and aside from that, you know, that I can imagine that would obviously make a better standard of film, you know, like that focusing on on great storytelling, from your experience, what you've seen over the course of years? Is, I know, it's, it's very difficult to say, because, obviously, you know, everyone's individual, and they react differently to different things. But have you seen generally a more a positive reaction to that style of filmmaking in terms of efficacy at getting people more curious, perhaps, who aren't vegan? Or aren't aware of these these topics?

Shawn Stratton  20:52

Yeah, for sure. I think if people have more, you know, the storytelling, but also even more people that they can relate to people kind of like them, you know, if they, if they just see these hardcore activists that are breaking in, or trespassing or going in the middle of night in these covert operations, and just doing this to, to get their films, it's like, alright, you know, I'm thinking about being plant based, I'm thinking about being a vegan, or I'm new to vegan, but I could never do that. That's not me. Or, you know, you know, I've already beyond that. But I think, you know, the storytelling and bringing kind of different people in to the, to the story that are kind of maybe more everyday people that are new to the movement or thinking about it, they can relate a bit better to them. So like, when Andrew the fill, the restaurant owner goes into this, this chicken coop this chicken shed, you can tell by his reaction, just overwhelmed by it all. Whereas some of the filmmakers that go in, have been in these, you know, dozens of times before, and not that it gets any easier, but they maybe get a little desensitised. And so the reaction is not quite as genuine as the first time when you take somebody off the street and put them in this environment. Yeah,

Jim Moore  22:08

they've almost like steeled themselves, they know what they're gonna they're what they're about to see. Whereas, you know, somebody who hasn't, and I just think about, you know, the, the phrase that keeps coming to mind with filmmaking is like, you know, it's the empathy machine. You know, it's the, the creator of empathy in our set evokes this. And I think without that kind of visceral connection with somebodies reactions on the screen, then, you know, I wonder whether it's quite as effective sometimes, you know,

Shawn Stratton  22:36

but, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, this is, this festival is all about empathy. And the messages that come from our fans

Jim Moore  22:43

are 100% 100%, thinking about the just the sheer volume of films that you've seen the amount of information that that has probably given you. And I can imagine it must be quite tough sometimes with some of the subject matter and so on being and being quite heavy and pointing out different things that are going on, sometimes not so positive things that are going on in the world, etc. Is there any, is there any kind of standouts that for you have almost changed your mission personally made you feel more in a steel in a particular direction.

Shawn Stratton  23:18

I'm not sure about changed my mission, I think it's always kind of been in similar. But you know, you know, having kids, I'm always keeping an eye out for family friendly films that that have a great message that are good quality that I can show my kids, because it's important, you know, they're the next generation. They're the ones that need to be able to show, I'm always looking for films that I can send to their teachers that they complain, things like that. I probably wasn't thinking about as much of that, you know, four years ago when we started. But yeah, I think it's just, it's just an overwhelming sense to keep going. You know, once I talk to these filmmakers, obviously, in any organisation, any nonprofit, any business, you have ups and downs, it's a roller coaster, you have hard days. And then like yesterday, I did a q&a. And I got off that q&a Call with this filmmaker and a key cast that was in the film and I was flying high. I was just like, man, we got to go through brick walls to get these out there like this is this is such important work. These people are so dedicated, so passionate to what they're doing, and they're making a real difference. And you know, we're just a vehicle to get their message out there. And we need to keep going with that.

Jim Moore  24:22

I can imagine Yeah, in terms of filling your your cup, you know, from a from a mission point of view. It's been incredible.

Shawn Stratton  24:31

Yeah, it's great. It's great talking to them because yeah, you get you get bogged down and customer service emails and this links not working in that like not working and what's wrong with my ticket and what's wrong with this, and then it's easy to get, like, frustrated with the technology that's happening, especially on a virtual festival and, and you know, drive yourself crazy, but then then you speak you take a moment to speak with people that are creating this work and you're like, Okay, I get it. Now. I'm back. I'm back on board. Here we go. Yeah.

Jim Moore  24:57

100% on that on that topic you talked about You know, the International piece and the technical and the links and, you know, all of that having to figure all of that I can only I can only imagine the complexity of that versus let's hire a theatre and, and fill it with people that feels a lot more straightforward to me. I mean, not easy, but a lot more straightforward. Thinking about, you know, one of the one of the sort of benefits of a physical Film Festival is that sense of community and discussion and so on and so forth. How and how have you managed to, to bring that into the world of the International vegan Film Festival, given the the kind of the last kind of couple of years and it being so virtual?

Shawn Stratton  25:36

Right, yeah, no, that's a great point. And that's something we're still working on. I think, I think we could probably do a better job with that, we'll try to have some kind of discussion chat boards, probably through Facebook, while the festival is going this year, it's maybe another avenue to look at, I think, you know, we've got a small team, and you want to focus on on getting the product on and then as that's done really well, then you can start building out. And some of it, you know, as we've switched platforms from last year, you know, few days out from the festival, like, let's make sure the films are there. Let's just make sure the films are there. And then we can build out let's get the Q and A's on there. Let's get the bios in there. And then we can worry about the chat and the other kind of frills stuff that we can add and make a better event. So I would like to have more of a chat discussion area, and we'll see how it goes this year, we'll see what the response is like and, and that but I definitely miss like you say, I miss the the camaraderie that happens with an in person event. And I'm all about you know, team building and group events. And I'm an extrovert that works from home by myself. I'm dying for a community event to get out there. And I can't wait to get back into theatres. And we'll do something here in Ottawa in January in the new year, I think we'll probably do a world tour screening. And that's another part of the big part of the festival is the World Tour screening, which I can I can tell you a little bit more more about but that gets the community event going for

Jim Moore  27:02

me as we hit let's hear about it now. That'd be great. Yeah, and

Shawn Stratton  27:05

so you know, I mentioned this last time, but we do have a world tour, where local hosts and communities can pay a licencing fee to the festival. And we basically give them a festival in the box, I like to think of it as, and they organise a screening of we call it the best of the best. So it's kind of the best short films about two hours of running film time. And they hosted in their their own community theatres they hosted we've had hosted in church basements, we've hosted it in beautiful theatres in downtown Toronto, it can be you know, essentially anywhere where you can get a projector and a good sound and a few chairs together. And I want you know, this is potential for growth is enormous. Every community in the world has a vegan club now, and vegan following and you know, there's no limit to this, I want to have, you know, hundreds of these around the world in the coming years looking,

Jim Moore  27:56

looking forward. Is that Is that the kind of vision then is that kind of top of the list for where you want to where you want this to go?

Shawn Stratton  28:02

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you know, I think I think the vegan I think the virtual Festival will will stay. You know, we, we weren't intending to do virtual, you know, three years ago. But here we are. And I think it's good, it serves us purpose. There's definitely people that live in places in the world that don't have maybe a world tour stop in their community, or live in a tiny place where it's never going to be. So this does give them an opportunity. You know, our virtual festival is open globally. Sometimes, some film festivals have, they have to put up geo barriers, geo blocks based on their countries and things like that. But all the films in this year's festival do not have any geoblocked. So it's available globally, which is awesome. But at the same time, yeah, you don't get that in person. fun event. And so we're gonna have a big event in London in the spring. And throughout the UK of people I've been speaking with there and all over Canada in the US. And right now we are, you know, soliciting and looking for more World Tour hosts. So if it's something that interests you definitely get in touch with us. And, and we can tell you about it. There's an FAQ page on our website about hosting an event. And we'll take it from there. But yeah, I look forward to that. I see a time when communities hosted the same, the they're stopped for the IVF f Sales in January. And then every year, people know in January, it's coming to town, they just, you know, the marketing gets easier. People just know and then, you know, people add Q and A's after they add a keynote speaker, maybe they add some food they bring in some vendors. I've really encourage the local hosts to kind of flare it up to their own personality and their community.

Jim Moore  29:35

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, that I think that'd be fantastic. You know, we we see a lot of markets and Fairs and things like that, you know, in the UK, but I've never seen anything like like this, you know, where there's this, you know, this kind of creativity people bringing this sort of form to people this medium. And then and then like, we talked about getting the physical discussion going around that and then can bring in the best of the vegan festivals and stuff alongside it. I think that'd be a fantastic idea.

Shawn Stratton  30:07

Yeah, it's, it's, you know, I really love the discussion aspect of these in person events because unlike a lot of festivals, like these films are truly life changing films, and every one of them, you could probably have hours of discussion on. And it's, you know, we do a thing here we did before the pandemic, where once a month, I was showing a screening of a film at a restaurant, a local vegan restaurant, they would kind of they had a loft area that they could keep running, but but have a quiet up there, and we'd have 20 or 30 people out. And it was great, because that gave us time to just show one film and have a discussion. Because you have so many there's so many discussion points that come out of these thought provoking films. Yeah,

Jim Moore  30:45

yeah, absolutely. How is how is life in Canada right now in terms of COVID and theatres opening up and the prospect of physical event?

Shawn Stratton  30:55

Yeah, it's, you know, it kind of goes province by province, as things are, you know, it's not kind of a blanket wide. Canada being such a massive country geographically not done, not population wise, but geographically. And so, where we are in Ontario, in Ottawa, Ontario is doing really well. They're opening up there, you know, the hockey or the professional hockey now or having, you know, 1415 20,000 fans and their stands, watching? Oh, yeah, really, I didn't know. And so they're opening up. And the theatres, I think, even last week, they lifted another restriction. So I think they're opening up even more, it was one of those things that I think we could have pulled it off in a theatre here, but it would have been 50% or so reduced capacity. And then it was kind of week to week changing here. And there it is, our outbreak is no outbreak, and it was, you know, for our small team, it was just too unreliable to put all our energy into that this year. With the chances of having a cancelled we, you know, we're such a small group that we wouldn't be able to, to kind of recover from putting all our energy in that. And so we decided this year to focus on on the virtual again, and hopefully do something in the new year. But things are looking much, much better for Canada for sure than, say this time last year,

Jim Moore  32:05

it's a Hey, good to hear it thinking, again, as you know, as somebody who was in the kind of leadership, speaking, coaching space, and then obviously now leading a team again, you know, back back back with others, leading this amazing organisation. And we've obviously talked a lot about the pivoting to virtual the kind of the ways to communicate the fact that the worlds kind of got smaller, in a way, I think, over the last 18 months, because everybody's got a little bit more tech savvy than perhaps they were, I've heard stats about, you know, things being pushed on five years in terms of people's, you know, comfort levels with attacking work, and these kind of these kind of statistics. For you personally, you know, thinking about your old world thinking about you, as a leader in the current space you're in? Do you think there is a sense of permanent change in what we've seen?

Shawn Stratton  32:58

Oh, yeah, in terms of the technology, for sure. I think it's just growing by leaps and bounds. And I often heard the comment over the last year that, you know, we've not just us, but a lot of organisations have grown six years technology, technologically six years in the last six months. And things that, you know, the saw coming down the road, and one of these years, just massively sped up to, to manage and deal with, to keep the operations going and COVID times. And, you know, that's probably one of the great opportunities and positive things that can come out of this. You know, just think about the q1 q2, communication within families that are, you know, doing more online, let alone you know, all the virtual festivals and all the businesses that are operating like that. And obviously, all the people working from home and in technology, jobs and other jobs. So I think it's, it's growing massively, and I think that's, you know, mostly for the positive

Jim Moore  33:54

and hopefully will reduce the number of support tickets that you have to deal with people not being able to use the links, etc.

Shawn Stratton  34:02

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. We're hoping not to have many once we press play, but there's always a few glitches. And that's just kind of part and parcel from it. And the nice thing is, you know, we're a week long and it's not like it's not working in the next 10 minutes. It's not like you're gonna miss the film. You've got a week to week to watch. Yeah, yeah,

Jim Moore  34:19

absolutely. We're given how, you know, isolating the last kind of 18 months has been how, you know, head down, you've had to be in terms of working to get this this festival, pivoted and then up and up and running in this new virtual space, etc. How is it how is it in terms of feedback that you get, you know, do you allow yourself some time to sort of read some of the comments that are coming in from perhaps the the viewers?

Shawn Stratton  34:47

Hmm. Yeah, I read all the feedback, obviously, on our surveys and things like that, which which is very important for us to become better and improve every year. You know, we've had Have a good Facebook and Instagram ads going this this fall. And some of those comments I choose not to dive into too much. As you can imagine, any kind of vegan type ad is going to attract certain comments. Some we just definitely delete and others we just choose to ignore. But you know, I'm always open to more feedback, the more feedback you get, the better. Typically, the better you're going to be and the better product you're going to put out. And so I'm always you know, trying to seek information from our listeners, our viewers, our board of directors, our advisors, to keep improving each ear for sure.

Jim Moore  35:39

Do you find much outside of the kind of the negative social media comments and so on that, inevitably, you're going to get if you put the word vegan on anything, but do you find yourself getting any any feedback? Comments? Perhaps people being affected positively from the kind of the vegan curious, they're the sort of the, those people adjacent, perhaps to some vegans in their life who've taken part in the in viewing the festival?

Shawn Stratton  36:06

Yeah, for sure. And then this is kind of the gold territory, these are the people that we really want to reach out to, you know, it brings back to the heart of, you know, what's the ultimate goal for this festival is, is to try to encourage more people to live a vegan lifestyle. And those are the ones that we want the vegan curious, because they're the ones closest to jumping on the, on the train with the vegan lifestyle. And so if we can get some films in front of them, that will really connect with them, then that, that, that's going to maybe push them over the edge, you know, like it did for me and my wife for different films. And so that's, that's, you know, at the heart of it, what we're trying to do, and yeah, every now and then, yeah, we will get a comment from them of like, hey, I'm interested in this. And I saw that I saw that film, and there's no going back, you know, once I saw that, I knew I had to, or I had no idea this, this and this, and you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna have to make that change. And so we do get those comments for sure. And then we also get comments from vegans that have been vegan for however long that's still learned a lot of information from these festivals from the films that we screen because just because you're vegan doesn't mean you know everything about it. And, you know, we're all learning and there's so many aspects of veganism. And you know, I remember the last time we had an in person festival, someone was leaving, and they were vegan. And they said, I had no idea they did that to baby cows. And, you know, for whatever reason, whatever angle she came into veganism, she didn't really hadn't computed it to her yet realising how, you know, the, the milk industry in the dairy industry and the baby calf, what happens to baby calves in the dairy industry, she didn't realise that. And so that, you know, that was another feather in her cap to stay vegan for longer because we're not just about, you know, educating vegan, curious and non vegans, we're about inspiring vegans to remain vegan.

Jim Moore  37:48

Yeah, absolutely. I feel very much the same. You know, sometimes, you can fall into that kind of complacency, kind of almost like, well, I've, you know, I'm doing the most I can, and so on and so forth. And then sometimes something, you catch one of these kind of films, you watch a documentary, you know, a piece of storytelling, and it does not any renew your purpose, but, but make you make you think slightly differently about a subject that you perhaps not been a big advocate, you know, for or against whatever it may be. So, yeah, I'm 100%. With you. I think it is very important that we still immerse ourselves in this, this world of storytelling, as vegans, too.

Shawn Stratton  38:30

Absolutely. One of the things we added this year, if I've mentioned too, is that is a Vegan Cookbook contest.

Jim Moore  38:36

Oh, amazing. Amazing. I saw that on the website. Actually, the the vegan festivals, the Film Fest was diversifying slightly. So it'd be good to talk about that.

Shawn Stratton  38:47

Yeah, so I'm really excited about this. We we started once again, the world's first Vegan Cookbook contest. I haven't found any others out there. You've got to do it. Right. Well, that's a neat thing about this industry. Like, as much as veganism has been around for a while, it's still just at the tip of the iceberg. You know, there's so many opportunities for so many cool events and things to happen still, to go. And, yeah, you know, I was thinking, you know, what can we add, we'd like to add something new each year and to spice things up and to help grow the festival and bring more different attention to it. And, you know, one of the things you always hear from people that are vegan curious, or that are interested is like, what do I cook, what do I cook? Where do I start? And I'm like, well, Amazon, you know, is loving cookbooks there and so they go there, and there's, you know, 350 Vegan cookbooks now, which is incredible. You know, 10 years ago, there wasn't that many, which is incredible, but at the same time, these people now are just like, oh, okay, 350 cookbooks, like I don't know which one to get. And so I figured let's you know, let's do a competition so that we can help narrow that down. And and tell people you know, these are ones you know, are maybe the cream of the crop or these ones are really good because of this and these ones are good because If this depending on what type of cooking you're doing in your home, whether you're a single person or you've got a family, or you're, you only have 10 minutes a night to cook or whatever, you know, there's so many cookbooks out there. And so we've done that we've, we've got the cookbooks in, and we've evaluated them with our judges. You know, again, I didn't know that we're gonna get three cookbooks, or five or 10. And we ended up with 20 cookbooks from all over the world. And it's been incredible. We had, we found judges with so I didn't want you know, expert chef judges, I wanted everyday judges that are making meals at their home for their own families and for themselves. And so we've got people from our social media that volunteered to be judges, we sent them three cookbooks each. And over the summer, they had to write, they had to cook at least three meals from each cookbook, and then fill out our online rating system for each book. And it's been it's been incredible experience. And the competition is fierce, you know, we have probably the top 10 books were all within one and a half points of each other between, say eight out of 10 and 9.3. There were 10 Top 10 books were in that range. And it was it's incredible to see.

Jim Moore  41:10

Yeah, but I bet I bet and then probably sharpened up some people's cooking skills in your judging panel. No doubt.

Shawn Stratton  41:17

Absolutely. Yeah.

Jim Moore  41:19

Was there a particular sort of style of cooking that you were getting in the submissions? Or was it quite an eclectic mix?

Shawn Stratton  41:28

It was it was a varied mix. But I'd say the one theme, you know, we had mixed from Zach Baird's junk food vegan cookbook, to we had the Armenian Vegan Cookbook. So you know, with Armenian type dishes. And then we had a lot, I'd say the the common theme, and it seemed to be most popular were kind of quick and easy. It was, it was probably the most common theme of you know, water, water, some of these comfort foods or foods that are that are healthy, but can maybe quickly. So probably not the meals that you're gonna make at a dinner party. You're going to spend the afternoon cooking and having everybody over to your house, I think a theme within our judges they liked. They liked quick, easy and healthy. Yeah, well,

Jim Moore  42:17

don't we? Oh,

Shawn Stratton  42:19

yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Put those buzzwords in your cookbook title, you're probably gonna do okay, these days. But but it's not just the title. We got it back it up. Right.

Jim Moore  42:28

Yeah, it does. Great. Then the other top tip.

Shawn Stratton  42:31

Yeah, yeah. And the other thing is just even ingredients, ingredients that are easy to find. Because, you know, I don't know if you've got one how many cookbooks you have. But I definitely have some cookbooks, that they look really good on the cover and the title and I dive into it, and I'm like, where am I gonna buy this? Where do I get that like, I don't know, half of these ingredients. Which which can be daunting and a challenge especially for you know, anybody that's got a busy family and doesn't have time to go to maybe to order all their groceries from Amazon or all the special spices from a special spice store.

Jim Moore  43:00

It can be like really off putting, you know, if you're the if you're a vegan, curious type who's, you know, dabbling in the world. And I remember the one of the I was kind of already set, watch Cowspiracy. And I was kind of like, I was mission driven. But I remember one of the first ones I picked up having all kinds of, you know, wonderful ingredients that I probably actually use quite a bit now. But at the time, it felt felt so alien. I was like, There's no way I'm gonna do this. Like, I what am I going to eat?

Shawn Stratton  43:30

Right, right. Nutritional yeast.

Jim Moore  43:33

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Those kinds of things. And I think sometimes, you know, as vegans, we talk about not and not just food, but we talk about all kinds of different concepts and, you know, pieces of information as if they're quite standard standard knowledge. Once you've been in the world for a bit, you can kind of think it's like your example about, about dairy calves, you know, you would think, well, everybody knows this. But, you know, we all didn't at a certain point. So yeah, it's, it's critical, I think, to try and put yourself back in the shoes of yourself the day before you went, you went, you made the decision to go vegan?

Shawn Stratton  44:13

Yeah. Yeah. Like I remember years ago, and long before we were vegan, and probably just learning what it was. We had a friend that were coming over for dinner, I knew they were vegan, and we were like, What are we gonna make? And we were like, Let's do this. No, can't do that. Let's No, can't No, no, can't do that. Like, it just felt like there was maybe one meal out there that they could eat. Now I look back on that. I try to remember those times when I'm going to them they've invited friends have invited us over, you know, her asking them like I really appreciate having us over. I know or maybe not the easiest to cook for, like, it's easy for us because we're loving it. But for someone that that's you know, doing it for the first time, it can be daunting.

Jim Moore  44:48

Yes, so true. I'm navigating that a little bit with my little one. He's three and a half. He's in nursery. And so often the nurseries kind of just perplexed as to what they could give him that wouldn't be the substitute of what the other kids are having. Because, you know, we want to try and encourage it to be as as similar as possible, so it doesn't feel set out. And yeah, like so often, we're in our heads, it's like, it's dead easy. It's just replaced this with that. But, yeah, we forget, people aren't in the same space sometimes with that, and don't know the you know, their last key. Somebody asked me the other day, is olive oil vegan?

Shawn Stratton  45:25

Does it come from something with a face? Yeah.

Jim Moore  45:31

Yeah, yeah. But you know, it feel that sort of indicator, just how an alien is still feels to some people that, that they wouldn't know, you know, you keep in their mind, you keep coming up with all these strange things that you keep telling me.

Shawn Stratton  45:46

And I'm amazed how many amazed how many friends that are kind of vegan curious, that are kind of flexitarians that have vegan cookbooks, you know, most of my friends, I would say here, like, most of them are not vegan. But most of them, I would say have at least one or two vegan cookbooks in their on their shelf?

Jim Moore  46:03

Do you think it's become more widespread in Canada from your experience now that that the general population are kind of much more vegan aware if they're not vegan? And yeah, and at least a making? Perhaps, are they making some of the links between things like climate change and, and their diet?

Shawn Stratton  46:20

Yeah, it's becoming much, much more aware here in Canada, especially a couple years ago, the government, which releases kind of their food, their Canada Health Guide, which is, you know, it's free, it's usually produced every four or five years, the government puts it out with kind of the updates of like, these are the types of foods you should eat. And we had a massive shift a couple years ago, in Canada, when this new food guide came out, it was the first time the government said that they created the food guide without any input from, from the industry, from lobbyists from industry, no, previously, the kind of food guide had a category called dairy was the whole category. And this new food guide totally wiped it out. It's very, very plant based heavy, I don't know maybe 10% in there is kind of meat and dairy you know, drink of choice. They say drink water, water, water, water. They you know, they don't even they took out the whole dairy category all together. They've got a much bigger fruits and vegetable category. And it's so it's very, very kind of plant based, heavy. And I think that really, you know, helped promote the vegan moving the plant based industry for sure, within terms of healthy eating and healthy living,

Jim Moore  47:27

is incredibly forward thinking, you know, I can't imagine the UK government right now coming up with anything like in it's very much British farming in and the animal agriculture and so on and so forth and trying to push that agenda. In fact, there was one that was released. There was a an independent study that was supposed to be on the government's website, there was actually accidentally posted on the website. And it was it had to be pulled. So it made the national news couple of days ago, so that the government pulled it because of its basically says, You need to be plant based. Fascinating. Wow.

Shawn Stratton  48:03

That's amazing. I didn't hear about that. Yeah, like, you know, in Canada, they're still doing massive subsidies to animal agriculture, which we would love to see reduced or eliminated. They're still you know, last year, they implemented an ag Ag Gag, the laws that prevent protesting and trespassing on an animal agriculture. Some of those people still fighting those bills and laws, but the Canadian government did last year put a massive investment into a pea protein plant. There's several, some of the largest in North America people Oh, teen plants are in Canada, and the government is, you know, investing in those. So we would like to see a lot less investing in animal agriculture and move that over to you know, the ultimate protein culture and protein industry, which is growing rapidly in this country.

Jim Moore  48:50

Absolutely. And funnily enough, those a he was on the podcast a while back, an ex NHL player, Canadian, a player to a guy called TJ Galiardi.

Shawn Stratton  49:02

Who Yeah, I know, TJ we spoke Yeah, who was on

Jim Moore  49:05

the podcast recently. And oh, great. It did make me think, you know, people like that from different walks of life, you know, heroes to many to many kids, and so on and so forth. And to perhaps some people who, you know, typically consider themselves you know, the sort of the alpha male type who I meet and so on. They've connected all of those strange dots. Right? It's great to see it kind of infiltrating these different different areas, you know, in not only in Canada, but in in the UK and around the world.

Shawn Stratton  49:38

Yeah, absolutely. It seems like every professional, major professional organisation sport in the world has, has a number of very prominent plant based athletes and that's just the prominent ones like when I spoke to TJ, he mentioned he wouldn't be surprised if there's at least one or two plant based athletes on every NHL team now and I was blown away by that. Yeah, because we just hear in the media like the top two or three that that speak out on it, but there's a lot that you are still maybe not sure about speaking out on it or new to it or there's other athletes out there that don't tell their competitors are plant based because I think it's an advantage and they don't want to know.

Jim Moore  50:08

Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating that isn't it? There's a, you've probably heard you may have heard of them. It is a UK football team called the Forest Green Rovers.

Shawn Stratton  50:17

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Dale Vance is one of our judges are

Jim Moore  50:21

you well versed in, but that for them, they I think this the stat was they've got like the lowest rate of scar tissue of all of the top three professional leagues. Interesting. And they feed their players. Obviously, not all of them are fully vegan, the players but they are feeding time this week, you know, everything, they feed them on the pitches. And it's funny enough, I think two or three of them have as a result said, this makes no sense to not be vegan. I'm gonna I'm gonna go fully vegan. So it's no doubt it's a competitive advantage. Clearly.

Shawn Stratton  50:54

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, Novak Djokovic, the tennis stars. It's been at a top of his game for so long now. And he's, you know, one of the oldest there, but he's, he's one of the best, you know, greatest of all time. And I think it's, you know, extended his career. He's even talked about that.

Jim Moore  51:11

Yeah, clearly, so many examples isn't so. And whichever biller we were talking about earlier, whichever angle you're coming at it from kind of doesn't matter. You know, we don't we don't mind how you got here as long as here kind of thing and you'll probably come for the health and whatever and you'll stay for the animals. I think we're probably most of us are in that space. You've been in the world for a while. So yeah, more power to to everybody in these these different worlds. I think Tom's getting away, but it'd be obviously remiss of us not to talk about where folks would go to, to get logged in to the film festival and find out more.

Shawn Stratton  51:47

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, all the information is on our website, just the IV ff.com. So that's th e IV FF calm. And right there on the homepage is a link to get tickets, and you can see our trailer that's on the homepage. And then all the information is there. There's a link to an FAQ, if you're interested in hosting a world tour event coming starting in January 2022. We'd love to speak to you about that. And I'd love to offer your listeners a discount if that's okay.

Jim Moore  52:14

under percent. Yeah, yeah, we'll definitely put all of that in the show notes. Yeah,

Shawn Stratton  52:18

yeah, you can. We'll we'll give you guys a 50% off discount for our passes. All all our all access passes for the festival. It starts this Saturday, October 30 and runs to November 7, and you just put in the code B V for bloody vegan, amazing, your passcode to get 50% off

Jim Moore  52:39

the PR stuff. Well, thanks so much, Shauna. So that's, that's brilliant. We'll, we'll make sure we post that everywhere so folks can can pick up that discount. Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you best of luck with the film festival. Hopefully I'll see one in the UK soon.

Shawn Stratton  52:57

Yeah, absolutely. I look forward to getting the festival over the UK this this spring and getting all the folks out there out for some good community events.

Jim Moore  53:06

Until then I'll definitely be online this weekend. So thank you.

Shawn Stratton  53:09

Great. And thank you so much for having me on and all the work you're doing with your podcasts. I'm thrilled that it's still going strong and I think you're doing a great job.

Jim Moore  53:17

Thanks Sure. Bye now. Bye bye. This is a bloody vegans production