Magnolia Pictures has picked up US rights to Participant Media's and River Road Entertainment's feature documentary Food, Inc.

The film world premiered at Toronto and is due to screen at the Berlinale, with a US release scheduled for the first half of 2009.

Josh Braun of Submarine Entertainment negotiated the deal on behalf of Participant and River Road, with Tom Quinn on behalf of Magnolia Pictures.

Producer-director Robert Kenner and investigative authors Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) expose the US food industry's highly mechanized underbelly in the film.

'Food, Inc. is a thought-provoking, beautifully crafted doc that not only addresses an issue of fundamental importance to many Americans, but tells them what they can do an individual to make a difference,' said Magnolia President Eamonn Bowles. 'There's nothing more elemental than what you eat and we think there's potentially a large audience for the film.'

In tandem with the release, Participant Media (Charlie Wilson's War, Syriana) is producing an extensive social action campaign that will focus on the industrialization of food and its impact on various sectors of society.

In conjunction with the release of the film next year, PublicAffairs will publish as a paperback original Food Inc.: How Industrial Food Is Making Us Sicker, Fatter and Poorer - And What You Can Do About It.