In this episode of the Film Ireland Podcast, we’re talking about the award-winning documentary World Without Cows with the award-winning journalists/filmmakers behind it, Michelle Michael and Brandon Whitworth.
The documentary takes us on a global journey across 22 countries and five continents, exploring the complex relationship between food, sustainability, biodiversity, and the people whose lives hang in the balance.
World Without Cows kicked off its global theatrical screening tour with its world premiere here in Dublin on 9th September 2026, at the Pearse Lyons Distillery.
From Covid restrictions to stolen equipment, the duo chat about the making of the film, their journey following the science, and the importance of telling a story that matters.
Listen now on SoundCloud, Apple, Spotify, Acast and Amazon, or subscribe to Film Ireland wherever you get your podcasts.
World Without Cows
This film follows Michael and Brandon across five years and 22 countries, from the cattle-crowded streets of India to the drought-worn grasslands of Kenya, in pursuit of a question most people assume is already settled: What role should cows play in the future of our food, our communities, and our planet?
What they find complicates the story. In India, cattle provide up to a quarter of the country’s protein (through milk), even as millions of cows roam the streets as strays, no longer producing milk but remaining culturally protected. In Kenya, cattle are survival itself for nomadic communities losing pasture to an increasingly shifting climate. And beneath the debate, scientists and ranchers alike are finding that well-managed grazing animals can actually help rebuild the soil the world depends on to feed itself.
Michelle Michael
Michelle Michael’s curiosity about the wider world began in a small Ohio town and ultimately led to a decades-long career in journalism, including years spent abroad as a U.S. military correspondent. Her work has taken her from local newsrooms to war zones, earning recognition from the National Press Photographers Association, West Point Military Academy, the Poynter Institute, and the Kentucky News Photographers Association. Over the past decade, Michael has turned her journalistic eye increasingly towards agriculture and the people whose lives are connected to the land. Working alongside longtime collaborator and World Without Cows co-filmmaker Brandon Whitworth, she has travelled extensively to document farmers and producers around the world, bringing their experiences, challenges, and perspectives to the screen. That combination of curiosity, field experience, and a reporter’s instinct for asking questions became the foundation for World Without Cows, a five-year investigation that took Michael and Whitworth across five continents in search of a deeper understanding of one of the world’s most familiar, and increasingly debated, animals.
Brandon Whitworth
Brandon Whitworth began his career in local television news, spending more than a decade with CBS and NBC affiliates in Kentucky and Utah before becoming an international video producer. A two-time Emmy Award-winning television news photojournalist, he has also received regional honours from the American Advertising Federation, the Associated Press, and the National Press Photographers Association.
Like his directorial counterpart, Whitworth is originally from Ohio. He has followed stories wherever they have taken him, from covering wildfires by helicopter to travelling the globe reporting on agriculture, science, and food. For the past decade, he has worked alongside longtime collaborator and World Without Cows co-filmmaker Michelle Michael, documenting the lives of farmers and producers across cultures and continents. That work eventually grew into their most ambitious assignment yet: a five-year global journey examining the role cattle play in our food systems, environment, economies, and everyday lives.
