Rise of the Giants follows a group of dedicated and eccentric farmers’ race to grow the world’s largest pumpkin (2032 pounds!) Every year growers around the world raise Atlantic Giant pumpkins that can grow over to 50 pounds a day! Along the way the film reveals how the plant changed the course of U.S. history, how farming helps incarcerated addicts with their recovery, and how a community of young growers have rediscovered their agrarian roots.
At the culmination of this race, the harvest, growers weigh their pumpkins for the chance at prizes up to $40,000. Out of the thousands of growers all over the world, Rise of the Giants followed the man that set the 2013 world record, a pumpkin the size of a VW bug.
The competition can be fierce and often involves surreptitious missions, which is captured in the film through night vision cameras, but all in all this addictive hobby attracts salts-of-the-earth committed to making people smile.