Curtis Ellis

Curtis Cleland 'Curt' Ellis (born December 15, 1979) is an American filmmaker, social entrepreneur, and advocate for sustainable agriculture and healthy food.[1] He serves as co-founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit organization FoodCorps.[2] He shared a Peabody Award in 2008 for King Corn, which he co-produced and starred in,[3][4] and in 2011 he won the 17th Annual Heinz Award (with special focus on the environment) with longtime collaborator Ian Cheney for their work in the sustainable food movement.[5]

Curtis Ellis
Born (1979-12-15) 15 December 1979
Portland, Oregon, USA
OccupationExecutive Director, FoodCorps

Early life

Ellis was born in Lake Oswego, Oregon. Ellis' father was Barnes Ellis, an attorney and his mother was Beatrice Ellis, a teacher.[6] The youngest of six children, Ellis attended Lakeridge High School in Oregon and The Mountain School in Vermont.

Education

Ellis earned a B.A. in History from Yale College.[7]

Career

Documentary films

Ellis co-created and starred in the 2007 Mosaic Films documentary, King Corn. The film, which The Washington Post called "Required viewing for anyone planning to visit a supermarket, fast-food joint, or their own refrigerator,"[8] followed Ellis and his best friend Ian Cheney on a yearlong quest to grow an acre of corn and trace its journey into food. Directed by Ellis' cousin Aaron Woolf, King Corn featured journalist Michael Pollan and Nixon-era Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz.[9] It received a limited theatrical release, aired nationally on PBS Independent Lens and won a 2008 George Foster Peabody Award.[10]

In the 2009 sequel Big River: A King Corn Companion, directed by Ellis and co-produced by Ellis and Woolf, Ellis and Cheney returned to Iowa to investigate the ecological impacts of chemical-intensive agriculture.[11] The film featured Yale University scientist John Wargo and geneticist Wes Jackson in its examination of the hypoxic dead zone and the link between herbicides and cancer.[12] Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben called Big River "a sharp and clever reminder that nothing ever really goes away, certainly not the soup of chemicals we're pouring on our fields."[13] Big River aired on Planet Green in 2010.[14]

Ellis and Cheney founded the documentary and advocacy company Wicked Delicate Films in 2005.[15] Wicked Delicate's first feature documentary, The Greening of Southie, produced by Ellis and directed by Cheney, aired on the Sundance Channel in 2008.[16] The film told the story of Boston's first residential green building from the perspective of the men and women who constructed it. The Greening of Southie was later rebroadcast by the Documentary Channel and released on DVD by A&E Television Networks.

In 2010, in collaboration with Cheney and journalist Jennifer 8. Lee, Ellis received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop a documentary about American Chinese food called The Search for General Tso.[17] Ellis also served as a Producer on Cheney's 2011 documentary, Truck Farm.[18]

Food advocacy and FoodCorps

The release of King Corn coincided with congressional debate on the Farm Bill. Through an outreach campaign supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and The Fledgling Fund, Ellis and the film's co-creators worked to spark discussion of food and farm issues among the general public. Ellis' op-ed "Make Real Food the Focus of Farm Bill" appeared in the Omaha World-Herald,[19] and he served as a guest on CBS News Sunday Morning, Good Morning America, and NPR.

Ellis and Cheney have made a point of pairing all their other documentary film projects with advocacy campaigns. Big River incorporated a letter-writing campaign that promoted conservation practices in agriculture. The Greening of Southie was the subject of an Earth Week in the Union Halls "Green Collar" initiative featured in The New Yorker..[20] Their Truck Farm outreach campaign spawned the creation of 25 mobile garden projects around the country.[21]

In 2010, Ellis and five colleagues co-founded the nonprofit organization FoodCorps as a response to the national epidemic of childhood obesity and diet-related disease.[22] The group's anchor program is an AmeriCorps public service initiative that recruits young leaders for a year of full-time public service fostering healthy school food environments in low-income communities. Working across the country, FoodCorps service members conduct nutrition education, build and tend school gardens, and promote local food in school cafeterias. For the program's first year, 1229 candidates applied for 50 Service Member positions.[23] Ellis is the organization's current Executive Director.

A frequent speaker on issues of sustainability, Ellis has lectured at TEDx, the Muddy Boot Festival, MountainFilm, and other numerous conferences and campuses. In 2011 he delivered the Casey Shearer Memorial Lecture at Brown University.[24]

Ellis is a former Food and Community Fellow, a current Draper Richards Kaplan Social Entrepreneur, and a member of the Board of Directors of Slow Food USA.

Filmography
  • King Corn, Co-Creator (2007)
  • The Greening of Southie, Producer (2008)
  • Big River, Director (2010)
  • Truck Farm, Producer (2011)

References
  1. "Young Leaders Behind King Corn, Truck Farm and FoodCorps Receive Prestigious Heinz Award" (PDF). Heinz Awards. September 13, 2011. Retrieved January 19, 2012.
  2. FoodCorps (2011). "Our Team" Archived 2012-01-11 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
  3. "Complete List of 2008 Peabody Award Winners". Retrieved 15 December 2010.
  4. "INDEPENDENT LENS: KING CORN". Archived from the original on 10 June 2010. Retrieved 15 December 2010.
  5. "The Heinz Awards: Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis". The Heinz Awards. The Heinz Awards. Retrieved August 26, 2016.
  6. (June 22, 2008). "Caitlin Boyle, Curtis Ellis." The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
  7. Food and Community Fellows (2011). "Curt Ellis Archived 2012-07-30 at Archive.today". Retrieved 2012-01-17.
  8. Hornaday, Ann (October 19, 2007). "King Corn': Kernels of Truth". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
  9. Drape, Joe (October 10, 2007). "A Movie That Scrutinizes Your Popcorn and Soda." The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
  10. Peabody Awards (2008). "Independent Lens: King Corn". Archived 2010-06-10 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2012-01-17.
  11. Brasher, Philip, and Dan Piller (January 6, 2010). "Farmers Fear Fallout From Film, Activists." Archived 2010-06-01 at the Wayback Machine Des Moines Register. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
  12. Big River. Dir. Curt Ellis. Docurama Films, 2010. DVD and digital download.
  13. Trueman, Kerry (March 5, 2010). "Our Toxic Waterways: Flushing Away Our Future?" The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
  14. Ju, Siel (November 3, 2010). "What 'King Corn' Does to the 'Big River'". Mother Nature Network. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
  15. Corporations Division, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts (2011). "Wicked Delicate Films, LLC." Archived 2012-07-08 at Archive.today Accessed 2012-01-17.
  16. The Sundance Channel (2011). "Film: The Greening of Southie" Archived 2010-01-30 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 2012-01-17.
  17. Wicked Delicate Films (2011). ["http://www.thesearchforgeneraltso.com/ The Search for General Tso"]. Accessed 2012-01-17.
  18. IMDb (2011). "Truck Farm." Accessed 2012-01-17.
  19. Ellis, Curt (November 9, 2007). "Make Real Food Focus of Farm Bill". Omaha World-Herald.
  20. Owen, David (May 18, 2009). "Green Collars". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2012-01-17
  21. The Fledgling Fund (2011). "Truck Farm" Archived 2012-06-12 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 2012-01-17.
  22. Black, Jane (October 4, 2011). "FoodCorps Steps In to Help Schools Do What They Couldn't Otherwise Afford". The Washington Post. Accessed 2012-01-17.
  23. Bittman, Mark (August 23, 2011). "Food's New Foot Soldiers". The New York Times. Accessed 2012-01-17.
  24. Brown University (2011). "Curt Ellis, Food Activist and Filmmaker, To Deliver Shearer Lecture". Accessed 2012-01-17.
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