King Corn

Two friends with one year to spare and a deep curiosity about the American food distribution system set out to grow an acre of corn and see what becomes of their crop in director Aaron Woolf's agriculturally themed documentary. Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis are best friends from college who have decided to move from the East Coast to the Midwest in hopes of getting a better idea where the food they consume on a daily basis actually comes from. Corn is America's most productive and subsidized grain. Upon relocating to Iowa, the pair seeks out the assistance of friends and neighbors in procuring the land, seeds, fertilizers, and herbicides needed to grow a one-acre bumper crop of this highly versatile commodity. As their maize is harvested and the sometimes-troubling realities of modern faming begin to emerge, the pair sets off on a mission to track the progress of their product and find out just how it is used to create a variety of different food products. What emerges is an informative and at times disturbing account of both the food Americans so readily consume without so much as a second thought, and the alarming state of the contemporary agricultural industry.