Well they’ve done it again. The two filmmakers that brought us King Corn, Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney, have come together to create another film that covers an important subject about how do we grow fresh, local food in dense urban environments, with a good deal of fun and quirkiness folded in: Truck Farm.
The truck that has the lead role in this film is no newcomer. She played a pivotal part in King Corn – she delivered the duo to Iowa to grow their one acre of genetically modified corn, provided a resting spot to eat their fast food during the road trip, and also hauled their corn away after it was harvested. Quite an accomplishment for an old gal. But that wasn’t enough. She still had some spunk left in her.
After settling in the big Apple, Cheney got an itch to grow food, but didn’t have access to space to grow it in. This is a problem for many city dwellers, but Cheney had an Aha! moment – why not turn the 40 square feet of space in the truck’s bed into an urban farm bed? Why not indeed!
Of course, filming the process, devising a way to hook up a camera to take 12 still pictures every hour, and involving a very creative musical duo, The Fishermen Three, to lay the ‘narration’ for this distinctive and unconventional film was a natural step. Well, for them it was.
In its second season of growing food, Truck Farm aspires to be fully harvested this coming winter as an hourlong documentary – one that I am looking forward to seeing, along with a myriad of others interested in learning more new ways to grow good food.