Mockumentary Asks: Would You Eat Lab Cultivated Human Meat?

Eat a Swede, a mockumentary produced by the Swedish Food Federation, which jokingly explores whether we should eat lab-grown human meat to tackle climate change, ​​​​​has scooped the Entertainment Grand Prix at this year's Cannes Lions festival.

The satirical 18-minute story follows Swedish scientist and founder of Swede Meat, Dr. Erik Karlsson, on his one-man mission and dream to line grocery store shelves with lab-grown human meat and help the world to eat more sustainably. "I have been eating human meat for quite some time now ... and I'm not crazy,” he begins.

The Swedish Food Federation made the provocative film to encourage people to sit up and take Sweden's lead for more sustainable and responsible food production. "We want to bring attention to a very urgent question: how can we sustainably produce high-quality food for 10 billion people? We’re not saying that we have all the answers, but we think we have some of them," they say.

Take a look at the short film below to find out if human meat is the future:

The film follows Karlsson through the highs and lows of his journey into the unchartered territory of what he believes will be a multi-billion dollar industry: from harvesting cells in his factory "where the magic happens" to trying to secure investment to scale up his idea and ultimately bag famous Swedish actor, Alexander Skarsgård as his first delicious on shelf offering, but does he succeed?

Actors were used in the film in the main, but the interesting 'real life' comes in when real focus groups are asked to try the human meat, with genuine reactions of shock, horror and disgust.

Polarised feedback has been posted in response to the video on YouTube. From those who were taken in by the prank, "I really hope this is a delayed April fools joke.." said Moa Falkman, to those who the concept resonated with like André Edwardsson: "Good way to grab people's attention and make them think about the current and rapidly increasing food crisis". Others like Imran Asif appreciated the poignant satire: "Really well made. Equal parts abominable, funny and ridiculous."  

The film also puts us in mind of another fake cannibalism act, when Sacha Baron Cohen conned a food critic with "ethical, human meat – from a farm in China" on Who is America?