As documentarians, it’s always great to enter a new world and learn about it and move on to a new subject. So it never occurred to us that we’d be looking to do a sequel.

Q: How did the sequel come about?

RK: When the pandemic hit, it crystallized so many things that had gotten that much worse in the food world since we had made the first film.

We saw what was happening in the meatpacking plants in the United States, where workers were being called essential and being denied unemployment, so they had to go into these very dangerous working conditions. Farmworkers were being told they couldn’t be tested for COVID because they didn’t want to slow up the tomato harvest. And that’s what brought us back into this world.

Q: Did you stay in touch with Schlosser and Pollan over the years?

RK: We did a project with Eric, “Command and Control,” about an accident at a nuclear missile silo. And we talked to Michael about doing projects, so we’ve been totally in touch. We’ve become very close, and it’s been a wonderful relationship, though I think all four of us equally thought we would never enter this realm again.

Q: Two senators appear in the film. Booker and Tester talk about being an unlikely pair.

RK: What’s so exciting about the two of them together is they are capable of expressing what’s wrong with this food system. So much of the way we look at the farm bill has always come out of rural America and has had nothing to do with urban America.

Tester speaks to the corporatization of farming in rural America and the fact that so many of his neighbors and towns have just been hollowed out. And Booker [speaks to how] the corporate food that gets into the cities is nutritionally bankrupt food that’s making people sick.

That didn’t exist in 2008. Really there was no one in the Senate at that point advocating for good food when we made the first film. There were people in the House doing a wonderful job, but that was not true in the Senate.

Q: What else has changed since 2008?

MR: We do talk about ultra-processed food, which is a new concept to the public, and there’s been a lot of research that began after the original film. I think this is an area consumers will be more and more focused on.

Q: I went to the screening in D.C., and I wasn’t prepared for some of the star wattage. You had the requisite people from the Environmental Working Group and other nonprofits, but you also had Chris Tucker and Morgan Freeman.

MR: It was a thrilling screening, honestly. A lot of participants from the film were there, and seeing people from so many different arenas come together around this issue just tells you how much people care about food and what it means to us.

RK: We spent the day going around Washington. We went to the FDA and met with them because they are talking about [front-of-package] labeling. We’re just saying let people know what’s in their food and let them be aware of the consequences of this food. And in talking to the FDA, you realize they need support. They need all the support they can get. Maybe food has become more of a culture war.

©2024 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. Visit at rollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.