Ian Cheney
Documentary Filmmaker and Activist
Recent film: King Corn
New project: The Greening of Southie

As an undergraduate, Ian Cheney was of two minds when he walked into Yale’s dining hall: grateful to be able to choose anything he wanted to eat, and encumbered by lack of awareness about how that food arrived at his fingertips. This tension came to preoccupy Ian throughout his college years. “In the context of global warming and the footprint we’re leaving on the planet,” Ian says, “I realized that my daily decisions are affecting the world, but I had no understanding of how. Food is perhaps the most direct way that we have an everyday effect on the planet. For me, finding out where my food came from was the first step to becoming a more responsible consumer and a more tuned-in citizen.”

Ian the activist learned about the changes a consumer can make to his or her dietary habits, and wanted to keep informing others. Ian the artist was looking for an outlet. Without a ready-made job to meet both needs, Ian created his own. In the highly acclaimed documentary film King Corn, co-producers Ian and Yale friend Curt Ellis move to Iowa, grow one acre of corn, and then follow their harvest through America’s food system.

“Filmmaking combines my interests in a way that I never thought possible,” Ian says. “To immerse yourself in a project that is simultaneously artistic, political and entertaining is a wonderful opportunity. This question about whether to be an artist or an activist was burning—whether it’s possible to combine them, or whether you end up diluting each and doing half as much good. Making King Corn is my response to that. The pretty pictures make the message possible, and the message makes sense of the pretty pictures. King Corn explores how we, as a nation, have created the system that overproduces corn and essentially subsidizes the production of fast food, to the detriment of our health.”

Much of Ian and Curt’s year in Iowa was devoted to understanding why and how their farming great-grandfathers made their decisions, and how they might have looked at the world. “While we’re living through the great obesity epidemic, they lived through the Great Depression,” Ian explains. “I think it’s immature to say, ‘Why would we ever have created pesticides? How could we be so stupid?’ when there’s so much to be gained by assuming a different perspective. Trying to understand the other point of view helps me stay optimistic about problems that otherwise seem insurmountable.”

In graduate school, where Ian earned his master’s in forestry and environmental studies, he and his classmates discussed how to maintain their optimism, their energy and their drive to promote change. “I was desperate to hold on to that positivity,” Ian says. “College is a sanctuary where you’re encouraged to think independently and follow your instincts, come up with wacky ideas and dream big thoughts. Those are good instincts, instincts I trust, because they were created in a pure space. Out there in the hustle and bustle of things, it’s harder to dream big things.

“Deciding to have a job without a steady paycheck was not necessarily a conscious decision. I wasn’t so much deciding against having a paycheck as I was deciding for working with my best friend, making a film I believe in, and being my own boss. It just so happens that also means being broke. Which means I still have my doubts. I spend half my time battling back doubts. But, it’s work worth doing. Even spending eight hours editing a scene that’s completely useless is such an important thing to do, because you don’t know it’s useless until you do it.”

In spending five minutes with Ian—or five minutes watching King Corn—you see another force that vitalizes him. “Humor is the lubricant for all the work that I do and want to do, not only in the final product, but also in the making of the product. The value of humor sort of speaks for itself. Why wouldn’t you want to laugh every day?”

Ian is now working on a full-length documen-tary film titled The Greening of Southie, which chronicles construction of an environmentally conscious residential complex, a project of South Boston developer Tim Pappas ’92.

EEH

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