Thursday, July 30, 2009

Truck Farm


"Parking spaces are an under-utilized open space," Ellis said with a laugh. "The idea is to bring it into places where there is not enough fresh food available and get people talking about the issues."

In an article in the Washington Post this week, writer Jane Black dug up the news that Ian Cheney and Oregon native Curt Ellis, filmmakers and creators of the marvelous documentary King Corn, have literally hit the road with their latest project. While King Corn took Ellis and Cheney to Iowa to grow an acre of corn, the new project is somewhat smaller in scale to reflect their new focus on urban agriculture.

Cheney's run-down 1986 Dodge pickup was getting a maximum of 10 miles per gallon and, instead of taking it to the junk yard or leaving it parked on the street, the guys decided to turn it into a teaching tool to (yes, here comes another one) jump start a discussion on farming when you don't have enough land.

The process is documented by three "webisodes" available on their website (click on Truck Farm) with great music that carries the story along. They'll be uploading new episodes every month until the movie comes out, and you can sign up to be notified of events leading up to the film's release. Great guys, great project, great fun!

2 comments:

Cristin said...

I hadn't heard of their latest project. Thanks for posting this!

Kathleen Bauer said...

These guys are doing important work, making us think while entertaining us. Looking forward to seeing it!