The Essentials

a digital, live documentary

A philosophy student travels half way around the world to work the kill floor at an Alberta meat packing plant.

A loving son brings his Dad to Canada for a visit, then brings the Corona virus home from the plant.

An activist fights to make sure none of this goes unnoticed.

Tune in for these Essential stories and more.

In the spring of 2020 news broke that the Cargill beef processing plant in High River was the centre of the largest COVID19 outbreak in North America at the time, with just shy of a thousand active cases and three associated deaths. Shortly after the JBS plant in Brooks was also rocked with hundreds of positive cases.

This new documentary-performance reveals the human stories behind the fleeting headlines. With verbatim text taken directly from interviews with plant workers and embodied by professional actors The Essentials offers audiences a gateway into conversations about the livelihoods of marginalized workers now deemed essential, the deathly effects Covid19 has had on their communities, and the resilient hope they still hold for a better future.