Press
King Corn to be screened at Liberty Hall   
By Kelsey Richardson. Sun, Mar 27, 2011

KU Environs, a campus group that focuses on environmental awareness, and Films For Action, an organization that uses films to promote important social and environmental awareness, are teaming up to screen the documentary King Corn Monday night at Liberty Hall.

Students will also have the chance to win gift card raffle prizes to Teller's, Pachamama's or The Community Mercantile

Everyone who attends gets a free Chipotle gift card.

Kim Scherman, a junior from Eudora and KU Environs officer, said they held a watch party to decide the film last semester and ultimately chose King Corn.

“We really liked the two guys in the film, Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney, and it just seemed like a really fun film,” Scherman said.

Ellis and Cheney met while in school at Yale and are the co-producers of King Corn. Ellis’ cousin lent a hand to the two-man team when they moved to Iowa and started filming and farming in January of 2004, according to kingcorn.net.

KU Journalism Professor Simran Sethi will speak before the film screening from 7 until 7:15 p.m. Sethi used her ties with Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney to set up a live 15-minute Q&A immediately following the film.

The event is a fundraiser for Just Food, the primary food bank in Douglas County that helped feed more than 2,000 people last month, Scherman said. Seventy percent of the proceeds will go to Just Food and 30 percent of the proceeds will go to Films For Action.

Scherman said the main goal of the event is to show people how much corn has infiltrated American lives and to promote conversation about the topic.

“We just want people to see this film and to understand a little more about what they are eating," Scherman said. "It’s just supposed to be a learning experience where there is no judgment.”