Why is it such a challenge to feed our school kids nutritious, appetizing food?

That's one of the questions raised in Michael Graziano and Ernie Park's documentary Lunch Line. This tightly-knit (63 minutes), informative film looks at what kids are eating in the cafeteria, the history of the National School Lunch Program, the vampires and werewolves who teamed up to create that program (there's a Twilight-like theme running through this film), and how kids themselves see (and eat) what's on their plate.

"Would you enjoy shoving this stuff down your throat every day?" one outraged student asks a school board in Chicago (where the film is set). "I don't think so."

Lunch Line offsets this pattern of thought by profiling a group of Tilden Career Community Academy High School students who took part in a Cooking Up Change contest by making $1-a-serving platters of healthy food at their school.

Graziano's father was a military man, so Graziano ended up living all over the country, including New Mexico. "I got a pretty good sampling of school lunches across the country and abroad," he said by phone last week. "I probably brought my lunch half the time and ate in the cafeteria half the time. I definitely remember some of it being gross and all the kids would talk about that. I also remember liking some of the things I ate."

He and Parks set out to profile the Organic Food Project in Chicago (featured in Lunch Line) before they expanded their vision for the documentary. Among their interview subjects: Susan Levine, who authored School Lunch Politics, The Surprising History of America's Favorite Welfare Program, former Sen. George McGovern (who recalls efforts to broaden the school lunch act in the mid-1960s), and school-lunch reformer Ann Cooper (the Renegade Lunch Lady).

Archival film footage and photos mix with original animation to replay the history of the school-lunch movement, which was forged in postwar America by opposing Democratic camps led by Sen. Richard Russell Jr. of Georgia and Rep. Jerry Voorhis of California. The two worked with other political leaders to hammer out a school-lunch program that benefited farmers, ranchers, students and the government.

Graziano said he and Parks want the film to stress the importance of political cooperation when it comes to social programs. "In today's political climate, the idea of compromise seems anathema to a lot of people," he said. "But historically the way that successful programs have been enacted and enhanced has been through compromise, political collaboration, and surprising alliances."

The film ends on a hopeful note that change can occur in school lunch rooms — if the public wants to work for it. That may not be an easy thing to do, some Lunch Line interview subjects note, as school lunches often give the customers — the kids — what they want: pizza, nachos, hot dogs, hamburgers, and so on.

Graziano urges school administrators and parents to eat lunch at school more often, to both experience what children are digesting and to set a model by choosing the healthiest option on the menu. Through it all, he praises the kitchen workers behind the scenes.

"There are a lot of school administrators and lunch ladies working to make a difference," he said. "These people toil away, trying to make improvements with no money, no staff, and limited equipment."

But, as Ann Cooper notes in Lunch Line, school janitors often earn more money than cafeteria workers. "That does say something about how we think about food," Graziano noted.

Lunch Line plays as part of Whole Foods Market's Do Something Reel Film Festival at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at the Center for Contemporary Arts, 1050 Old Pecos Trail. Tickets are $9.50. Visit lunchlinefilm.com for more information.