A relatively unheralded entry in the Chicago International Documentary Festival, which starts today and runs through April 8, is Aaron Wolf’s King Corn, which made its premiere earlier this month at SXSW. Taking cues from Super Size Me and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, it tracks two college buddies as they move to Iowa, grow an acre of corn, and then attempt to follow their crop through the industrial food chain.
Says the PR: “Ultimately [the guys] 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. . . . 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.”
It screens at 3 PM Sunday (4/1) at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division. For more previews of films showing at the festival, see the Reader film critics’ coverage.