ULTIMATE DOCS COMPETITION

KING CORN

USA, 2006, 92 min., English

Director: Aaron Woolf
Producer: Aaron Woolf
Script: Aaron Woolf, Ian Cheney, Curt Ellis, Jeffrey K. Miller
Cinematography: Sam Cullman, Ian Cheney, Aaron Woolf
Editing: Jeffrey K. Miller
Music: The WoWz, with Bo Ramsey and Spencer Chakedis
Sound: Richard Bock
Production company: Mosaic Films, Inc. in association with ITVS
Print Source:
Curt Ellis
1 Telegraph St. #3
Boston, MA 02127
USA
Tel.: 503 522 1334
Fax: 212 202 3663
e-mail: curtis.ellis@comcast.net
www.kingcorn.net


King Corn

How exactly does corn get from the cob and into our McDonald's happy meals? That’s what two east coast college friends, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, hope to learn when they move to Iowa to grow, harvest and track an acre of corn. What starts as a simple experiment in how the food chain operates, plunges the duo into a world of skeptical neighbors, genetically modified seeds, nitrogen fertilizers and powerful herbicides. Ultimately Cheney and Ellis succeed in planting and growing a bumper crop of America’s most productive, most subsidized grain grown in Iowa soil, but when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises disturbing questions about how we eat and how we farm. Taking up where Super Size Me left off, this insightful and commanding look into the use of corn – from grain feed for cattle to the main ingredient in soda sweetener – sheds light on America's addiction to frugality where cheap food and cheap production may be costing us our health.

Aaron Woolf received a Master Degree in film from the University of Iowa. Cinematographer, director, screenwriter. His films have aired nationally on PBS. He is the founder of the Boston - based Mosaic Films, Inc.

Filmography (as a director):

King Corn (2006);
Dying to Leave (2003);
Greener Grass (2000);
Art & Raicing: The Work and Life of Salvatore Scarpitta (1999).

SATURDAY, MARCH 31 AT 8:00 PM./THE WILMETTE THEATRE

SUNDAY, APRIL 1 AT 3:00 PM./CHOPIN THEATRE

TUESDAY, APRIL 3 AT 7:00 PM./PORTAGE THEATRE