Flicks and Food Trucks has brought cinematic and culinary offerings to Tampa for months now, but soon it will bring a new element to the event — a farm. On June 21, from 6 to 10 p.m., Flicks and Food Trucks will include a truck farm along with its fleet of food trucks and host a screening of the documentary Truck Farm. The movie follows King Corn subject Ian Cheney as he attempts to grow a farm in a pickup truck using heirloom seeds and green-roof technology, and next Thursday's event will feature a living example of same.
Marisa Langford, the person who brought Truck Farm to Tampa and the founder of Fit Kids Playground, said she first heard of the film while working in Chicago and hearing a client continually mention it.
“Basically what I found out was that there was a documentary called Truck Farm out there, and what I got to see in Chicago was actually one of the first Truck Farm fleets,” she said.
Langford then decided the project matched up nicely with Fit Kids Playground, a Tampa Bay area organization that promotes health and wellness in children, and she bought the movie screening rights from Cheney as well as a fleet truck. (Cheney could not be reached for comment for this article.)
The Tampa Truck Farm truck is being sponsored by Chipotle, which may offer future demonstrations on the use of cilantro and other educational programs for children. Flicks and Food Trucks will be hosting the Tampa premiere of Truck Farm, which she said she will tour the Tampa Bay area to help teach children more about growing food.
“We really want to get them thinking that you only need four things to grow something — sun, soil, water, air,” Langford said.
Tiffany Ferrecchia, operations manager of Tampa Bay Markets, said at first she was unsure how Truck Farm would pair with Flicks and Food Trucks’ standard menu of 15-minute short films and mobile restaurants. Now she sees the project as an embodiment of the event’s philosophy that good food can come from unconventional places.
“What we’re really trying to accomplish is show them how food doesn’t traditionally have to be from a restaurant — you have the ability to grow it, you can move around and you can eat off food trucks,” Ferrecchia said.
Langford said the truck farm has now partnered with Tampa Bay Markets, so it will make future appearances at local markets such as Seminole Heights Morning Market, Wiregrass Fresh Market and Hyde Park Village Market.
She said she feels that Truck Farm is a documentary that “can be watched by anyone,” and she brought the project and film to Tampa to spread the idea that food can be grown by anyone, anywhere.
“I have kids, and my 6- and 7-year-old watched it with me a while back, and when we were done with the film, I asked them, ‘What did you learn from this?’” Langford said. “They said that you can grow something in anything. That’s kind of the concept and the reason I wanted to bring Truck Farm to Tampa.”
