Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, co-writers of 'King Corn.' (Photo Courtesy of Sam Cullman)

Sitting on the roof of a dusty Dodge Ram pickup, Curtis Ellis chomps on a golden cob of corn, one of thousands that he and his best friend and business partner grew on an acre of farmland in Iowa’s corn-laced Grain Belt.

“It tastes like sawdust,” Ellis mumbles, spitting out the kernels.  “Yeah, it’s disgusting,” concurs his partner, Ian Cheney, lobbing the cob back into the fields.

That taste test is a scene in a 2007 documentary film made called “King Corn,” in which the pair move to the Midwest after having their hair analyzed and discovering that it consists predominantly of corn. They buy an acre in Greene, Iowa,  and set about learning the ABCs of growing and selling corn, from planting genetically-modified seeds to receiving government subsidies. The film shows how the traditional family farm has become a vast commercial operation, and the role commodity corn plays in America’s seemingly insatiable hunger for cheap food.

“King Corn” is one of a budding crop of food-related documentaries produced in the last decade with names like “Fast Food Nation,” (2006), “The Future of Food” (2004) and “Deconstructing Supper” (2002). They are among the more than 75 food-related investigative and exploratory documentaries released since 2000, according to by the Small Planet Institute, and almost all come to the same conclusion: The foods produced on factory farms and in processing plants are making Americans sick.

According to chef and food activist Ann Cooper, co-author of “Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children,” the current state of our national food system “is a danger to our life expectancy as a species.” These films are a form of visual advocacy, she says.

While it might seem to be an orchestrated effort, these filmmakers come to the topic from different directions and reasons. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Catherine Gund made “What’s on Your Plate” after discovering that her teenage daughter was genetically prone to high cholesterol. The film, released in 2009, tracks 11-year-old Sadie and her friend, Safiyah, as they ask food activists, farmers, storekeepers, their families and the viewer about  the origin of their food, how it’s cultivated and prepared, how it travels from farm to plate  and what happens with the packaging and leftovers. The film recently aired on Discovery’s Planet Green channel and is making its way into small theaters and schools as part of Gund’s meticulously organized grassroots campaign.

Sadie and Safiyah in the Union Square Greenmarket while filming "What's on Your Plate." (Photo courtesy of Aubin Pictures)

Gund, whose film credits include, “Motherland Afghanistan” (2007) and “Making Grace” (2004), never before produced a food-related documentary. While she has made other socially relevant films, none seems to have caught on as this one has. She is currently working on a guidebook, which she plans to publish with the release of the DVD and has developed a family cook-in tool set and an interactive Web site to  raise awareness about food choices.  “It’s a pun, but people are so hungry for information about food,” she said.

But is America ready to digest all of these food films? Apparently so. School systems are using them as educational tools, while food film festivals are popping up across the nation, such as the Whole Foods-sponsored “Let’s Retake Our Plates,” which is showcasing 14 food films in April in 25 states.

Using media to examine and critique the flaws in America’s food supply is nothing new, of course.  Upton Sinclair’s 1906 muckraking classic novel about the meat industry, “The Jungle,” led to one of the first federal laws providing for federal meat inspections. More recently, Michael Pollan’s 2006 book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” describes the history of America’s food system and highlights both the hidden costs and benefits of eating industrial, organic, local and foraged foods.

One of the few big-budget food films, “Food, Inc.,” (2009), was nominated this year for an Academy Award for Best Documentary. Directed by Robert Kenner, an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, it is a visual synopsis of “Omnivore’s Dilemma” that probes the food industry’s economic motives and includes graphic images of animals being crushed to death by a heavy weight and of ulcers in cows’ stomachs caused from their inability to digest their corn diet. In response to “Food, Inc.,” an alliance of food production companies formed a Web site named SafeFoodInc.com, claiming America’s food industry is a “modern miracle” and accuses the film of containing “an astonishing number of half-truths, errors and omissions.”

Why this bumper crop of food films now? “Art reflects culture,” says George Stoney, a 93-year-old documentary filmmaker, known as the father of public access television, who teaches courses at New York University on socially relevant films. Stoney, who has mentored hundreds of young filmmakers since he began teaching in 1970, says, “the social movement always comes first, because documentaries don’t create a movement.” However, he stands firm that socially relevant films, unlike other forms of art, do more then just reflect mass consciousness.  As for the number of recent food-related films he adds, “there can never be too many films with the same overriding theme.”

One of Stoney’s former M.A. students, Shelley Rogers, produced a 15-minute exploratory short for his class about the obstacles facing organic farmers. After graduation,  Rogers got a grant, raised some funds, and spent four years filming and producing a documentary called “What’s Organic About Organic” (2010), which details the challenges that arise when a grassroots agricultural movement turns into a mainstream industry, and chronicles the lives of organic farmers from New York to Florida, activists and scientists, and how organic agriculture has the power to solve a plethora of environmental and health problems.

Rogers says she “had no idea that there were so many other food films out there” while she was producing her film. She doesn’t worry about overlap, however. “Each film can be bigger than itself and hopefully reach more and more people who aren’t part of the food activism choir,” she says.

A Still From 'Grown in Detroit.' (Photo courtesy of Mascha Poppenk)

Some filmmakers find themselves unexpected participants in the food reform movement. Mascha and Manfred Poppenk, for instance, made “Grown in Detroit,” a 2009 documentary about urban organic farms in Detroit organized by a school for pregnant minority teenagers. The film won the Community Empowerment Film Award last month from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which operates in underserved communities.

“Grown in Detroit” was featured last December at a film festival in New York City called “Hungry Filmmakers” that showcases clips from a range of food documentaries. Other films included “End of the Line,”  about the impact of over fishing our oceans and “Mad Cow Investigator,” about a New Jersey woman who started investigating a disease cluster in her community and turned into a food activist.

Rogers, who co-curated the event, says that while the food films compete against eachother they seem to have more power as a group.  Currently, she and the other “hungry filmmakers” are looking to reach a wider audience, and are considering taking the Hungry Filmmaker event on the road.