July 10, 2007 at 3:35 pm
· Filed under Film Festivals
We’re flattered to have been a part of Israel’s incredibly friendly, incredibly warm environmental film festival, held in Tel Aviv each summer. King Corn got some red-carpet treatment as Ecocinema Israel’s opening night film, and the cinematheque was packed!
Israel is one of the top importers of US corn, and the audience had a lot of questions for us. It didn’t take long to find out why…Curt took a bus through the countryside to show the film at a Kibbutz in the south, and saw dairy and chicken confinement farms along the way, and a silo complex that might well be holding some of our Iowa corn.
It made us wish we’d had more time to talk about the role of exports in King Corn, because almost 20% of US corn ends up being consumed overseas. While we like to imagine that all that corn is feeding hungry people somewhere, it often winds up undermining local farmers and regional food systems, and encouraging other countries to eat the same way we do. In Israel, already 39% of the population is overweight, and the problem seems to be worsening. They do have the good idea of eating salad for breakfast, though, and that’s a habit we’ve taken home with us.
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