Hopedance Media Movie King Corn SB Public Library Downtown Faulkner
Gallery Tuesday Nov 20, 6pm
Tuesday, November 20 2007 6pm
Film & Dinner!
Brilliant, funny, exploring 2 young guys searching why they, and the
country, are "full of corn.” What happened and why? These two
friends
set out to discover why by actually growing corn on an acre in Iowa to
find out. Fascinating!
DiNNER with American Flatbread PiZZA and Sunstone Wine.
Where: Faulkner Gallery, SB Public Library
Suggested donation: $8-$10
REVIEW KING CORN SUSTAINABLE TABLE WEBSITE
King Corn is
a humorous and touching documentary about two best friends who decide to
move to Iowa to grow an acre of corn – after finding out (through
laboratory hair analysis) that their bodies were made primarily out
of….corn. But this is not your typical buddy picture. While
it does trace a year in the life of two friends, the film is really about
the history of corn in modern America and the filmmakers’ relationship
with the crop they’ve decided to grow.
After the somewhat shocking discovery about their bodily composition, Ian
Chaney and Curt Ellis move to a small county in Iowa (where,
coincidentally, both had farmer great-grandfathers) in order to find out
how they (and most other Americans) ended up made out of corn. The
two friends convince an Iowa farmer to lend them an acre of land to plant
their corn crop. They purchase genetically modified corn for
planting, and with the help of their neighbors, some heavy machinery, and
lots of chemical fertilizers and herbicides, they end up growing a bumper
crop of corn. But as Ian and Curt show us – this isn’t your sweet
summer corn-on-the-cob we’re talking about – it’s corn bred specifically
for industrial applications. The two friends decide to find out
what happens to the corn they’ve grown after it leaves the grain elevator
– and find that tracing their crop is easier said than done.
Ultimately, however, they come to the conclusion that their corn is
likely destined for one of two American industries: animal feed or corn
syrup.
Diane Hatz interviewing Curt Ellis at Clear Creek Distillery
in Portland during the
Eat Well Guided Tour.
Americans are so “corny” because almost every product in conventional
grocery stores – from steaks to chicken breasts to condiments to desserts
to tomato sauce to frozen entrees (the list goes on) are ultimately
derived from corn, either in the form of high fructose corn syrup or from
corn-based animal feed. The filmmakers visit cattle feedlots which
hold thousands of animals dining on corn-based feed and learn that too
much corn causes the cattle to eventually develop an acidic condition in
one of their stomachs (acidosis) that eventually kills them. And
after having trouble getting a tour of a high-fructose corn syrup
factory, they decide to make corn syrup themselves (note: the process
requires sulfuric acid and other industrial chemicals). Both corn-fed
beef and high-fructose corn syrup contribute to the obesity epidemic in
the United States. Nutritionists and others interviewed in the movie also
discuss the link between the diabetes epidemic and high-fructose corn
syrup (especially corn syrup consumed in the form of soda).
The filmmakers trace the history of corn subsidies in the US – the
current system started only about 30 years ago when the Farm Bill was
changed and the emphasis was put on industrial-style monocropping.
The two friends lose money growing their acre of corn – the cost of seed,
herbicides, chemical fertilizers, and equipment rental outweigh the price
per bushel they get for their corn. However, they get government
subsidies for growing the corn which makes up for the initial input cost.
The film gets to the heart of the matter by revealing the farmers’
frustrations. Many of them are multi-generation farmers caught up in the
farm subsidy system. They realize that the current farm subsidies are
part of an end to the more traditional farming of generations past, but
can’t remove themselves from the system without losing their
shirts.
The movie contains interviews with Michael Pollan (author of The
Omnivore’s Dilemma) and several farmers in the Iowa town where Ian
and Curt grow their corn. All-in-all, King Corn is a well-made,
though provoking and sometimes humorous film about our modern food
system.
For copies of the DVD and more information on the filmmakers’ odyssey
into the world of corn, check out the King Corn
www.
kingcorn.net/
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Read more about
US agriculture
policies,
economics
, animal feed,
family
farms, and more on the Sustainable Table