Local Foods Movie Series at the Byron Colby Barn Continues

Last November Mike Sands showed the movie Fresh! and the event was a big success for all who came. Well this event is continuing for at least two additional nights. This Friday, January 15, is the film HOMEGROWN and Feburary 24th is the acclaimed film King Corn and the short sequel Big River.

The Byron Colby Barn is located at 1561 Jones Point Road in Grayslake IL.

All movies are FREE!

On Friday, 7:30 January 15th, we'll show a 52 minute video by Robert McFalls entitled HOMEGROWN. HOMEGROWN follows the Dervaes family who run a small organic farm in the heart of urban Pasadena, California. While "living off the grid", they harvest over 6,000 pounds of produce on less than a quarter of an acre, make their own bio diesel, power their computers with the help of solar panels, and maintain a website that gets 4,000 hits a day. The film is an intimate human portrait of what it's like to live like "Little House on the Prairie" in the 21st Century. HOMEGROWN is ultimately a family story. It's about what lead them to where they are today, what changed them and what keeps them together. Perhaps by learning of their journey to a sustainable life style, we might be inspired to take our own first steps. To see a trailer go to www.homegrown-film.com/trailer.html

On Wednesday, 7:30 February 24th, we'll show the acclaimed KING CORN followed by their short sequel BIG RIVER. KING CORN is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In KING CORN, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat—and how we farm.BIG RIVER picks up where the 2006 film KING CORN left off - in the banks of the Mississippi River. Where KING CORN was a light-hearted look at our industrial food system through the lens of two wide-eyed Yale graduates (Curt Ellis and his partner-in-crime Ian Cheney) cultivating a single acre of corn in Iowa, BIG RIVER is a harsh reality check, examining the impact industrial farming has on the Mississippi River. For trailers go to www.kingcorn.net and www.bigriverfilm.com

There will be discussion leaders and door prizes at both events.

Please pass on this information to any colleague or you think would be interested or onto your own blog. The screenings are free and open to all!