To Dye For: The Documentary

Thankful cannot express how I feel that many people decided to create this film! I hope this film gets approved for Netflix, Hulu, and everywhere else because its message is vital! It is life or death that parents learn about how toxic these dyes are! I have first hand experience of watching my children lose their minds after Easter or Halloween candy, I wish I would have learned WHY sooner! It was the dye! I cannot tell you how many parent called me crazy when I eventually would deny my children foods or candies with dye, I wish they knew everything in this film! Cannot recommend this film enough!

This doc does a decent job of getting the info out there that there are artificial dyes that we should be aware of. It even starts naming them in the first few minutes and we also get a brief history of them and the FDA.

Then is somehow just stops and goes into story mode. One mother's story after another and dropping tid bits from academics and is mostly filler for the 94 minutes of running time.

You can easily skip through the stories and there is no data to back up anything. There is a blindfolded taste test which means nothing.

The bottom line is that other countries have banned some of these chemicals from food while the US has not. In the end it asks us to call/write politicians who are lobbied by the massive food companies, which has been mostly futile since the 1960's when some of these chemicals were created.

A poor documentary from a husband and wife team who are first time film makers.

The 50 reviews are all from 1 review accounts giving it 10 stars. If only the film makers put the same effort into making their film as they did creating fake profiles maybe this would have turned out better. 3/10 for the first 5 minutes. Nothing new after that.

I loved the film! I watch a lot of documentaries and this one was really well made, well thought out and intentional. I am a functional health practitioner, a mom of four children, and at least one of those has a severe food dye sensitivity. I could relate to so much of the film. I really appreciate the producers putting this out! Its truly a gift to our population. So many people don't realize that other countries have banned artifical food dyes. Education is a huge step towards change, and this film does just that! If your child has confusing or unexplained behavioral issues, I highly recommend that you watch this film!

This film is necessary and relevant. It relatable and helps share an important message needed for the American food industry! It is so well done and understandable. My family champions this film and this movement! We are grateful for this family for only sharing their experiences to the world. My young boys are hopeful that this film will be what America needs to finally pull back on synthetic dyes! They would love to walk into a store, or ice cream shop and not be limited.

Take the time to watch this film, educate yourself, synthetic dyes have so many negatives and no positives. You will not be sorry!

I work in video journalism and this film reminds me of a lot of projects by new filmmakers who feel passionately on a topic - emotional stories, interviews on one side of an argument, the making of the film itself used as a narrative device (it was your son that was interesting, not your being new to the craft), a lack of new or groundbreaking information / footage, and longer than necessary. Which is fine; most filmmakers - newcomers and veterans alike - will fall into these traps. It's so easy to do. What most people need to avoid these is an editor, which I couldn't feel in this project (and by "editor" I don't necessarily mean the person who holds the mouse and controls the editing software - I mean someone who will ruthlessly force the filmmakers to cut the fat, to get outside their comfort zones, to break new ground or to find new information, and ask the filmmakers to examine their own biases (counter arguments are actually *good* for the credibility of a project, but it can be hard for an advocate to realize this)).

The things I would've liked to have seen in this film: (1) discussion of the crackpot pseudoscience fringe who have attached themselves to this issue - has that hurt the cause? Give us a peek of the reality inside the movement. (2) An examination / explanation of how it can be that the FDA can ban something for external use but allow it for internal use. (3) Interviews with food industry folks: someone defending food dyes ("Americans want crazy-looking crap - what are we supposed to do??") and/or someone who worked in the food industry at the time these dyes were taking hold and can offer us a peek behind the curtain. It would be especially cool to hear from someone who developed these dyes and tried to make them safe for kids....but failed. And most of all, (4) someone at FDA - either *currently* as a whistleblower, or *formerly* as a "I can't believe I saw this go down"-type voice - who can provide either a smoking gun or provide info that shows how this is a profit-vs-people issue. I suppose the FDA interview could also be a humorous device when the person can't tell us why such toxic crap is allowed in our food. Oh and (5) less reliance on personal, tragic narratives. Some of this is absolutely needed, but such a huge issue that's been at-play for decades now should also have produced macro-sized data and big health trends that were missing from the film. Oh and (6), yeah, it doesn't look great that there are a bunch of 10-star reviews from first-time reviewers and the "rate this" score is around 6.

It also would've been really cool to see your wife confront a food executive; moms with kids who've been harmed have the moral high ground 100% of the time.

But kudos for getting a passion project into the form of a feature film. I hope it produces good things for your son. Much of the lighting and cinematography were really beautiful, and you found some very compelling personal stories.