LORI SILVERBUSH:Yes.

I mean, Barbie was an amazing character, because she was simultaneously dramatic and interesting to watch, but also super articulate. And despite her struggles and despite how hard she was working to be a good role model to her children and to provide healthy food for them, she was also an activist on a national level around this, as part of the Witnesses to Hunger, which were 40 women in the North Philly area who had documented the struggle to put food on the table.

And they were taking their photographs around the country and showing people. And through her activism, Barbie got a job after many, many months of unemployment, through no fault of her own. She ended up getting a job. It was counseling other people and helping them get food benefits. And she got so much -- there was so much satisfaction and so much self-worth and she was so excited.

But the truth is that the salary that she got paid put her just above the level of qualification for SNAP, which is what—food stamps, what we call food stamps today. And she was cut off immediately. And her children, as a consequence of her working, were cut off from a state-subsidized day care, where they received healthy meals.

And, ironically, after going to work and sort of fulfilling her side of the social contract, as we like to think of it, her children were hungrier than before.

RAY SUAREZ:You take us to visit working poor families around the country in a rural area, right in the heart of a big American city, and in a small town.

LORI SILVERBUSH:Yes.

RAY SUAREZ:Were they glad to you have there?

LORI SILVERBUSH:At times.

RAY SUAREZ:Did they find it an intrusion?

LORI SILVERBUSH:Well, I think we worked very hard to establish trust and to develop relationships. We didn't just show up with a camera and say, oh, let us in and shoot.

We cast a really wide net. We learned in our research that every single county in the United States is grappling with this issue. That meant that we wanted to represent the wide variety of people that are facing food insecurity. And there were a number of groups that are very active working on this. And they were able to introduce us to people that you meet in our film, like Pastor Bob, who introduced us to the community of Collbran in Colorado.

He was able to show us a town where every single member of the town was impacted in one way or another by food insecurity. And these are people who are quite proud, quite private, and were not necessarily looking to talk about something that quite—some of them felt some shame around. This is an issue that carries a good deal of stigma. It shouldn't, but it does.

And over time, we were able to sort of get people to understand that we were on their side and that they were not to blame—at least we didn't think they were to blame—for the situation they found themselves in. And they opened up quite courageously in most cases.

RAY SUAREZ:So you watch the movie, and these beautifully drawn portraits and gorgeous photography.

LORI SILVERBUSH:Thank you.

RAY SUAREZ:You sympathize. You empathize. And then what?

LORI SILVERBUSH:Well, everybody has a stake in fixing this. One of the great things is that at this same time as this movie launches, on March 1—and it's coming into theaters. It will be on iTunes the same day. It will be on demand the same day, so that people all over the country can see it, whether they are near a movie theater playing it or not.

On the same day, we're launching a national action center, the first of its kind, around hunger, where all of the major national hunger groups are getting together, also, with state groups and with local groups. You can plug in your zip code and find out exactly what you can do at any given moment to affect the policies that are being decided right now on the Hill, to affect what's happening in your own backyard, to engage on any level of activism that you want.

And the truth is that, if we engage as citizens on this, and we let our representatives know that it's time to fix this, they will fix it. But we can't expect government to do the right thing unless we have told them that it matters to us. So, hopefully, this film is going to give people the awareness, the engagement and excitement around it, wants to activate them, and then gives them—will give them very clear and accessible tools to do that.

RAY SUAREZ:The film is "A Place at the Table."

Lori Silverbush, thanks a lot.

LORI SILVERBUSH:My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

JEFFREY BROWN:We have more from Ray's interview, plus selected clips from "A Place at the Table." That's on our website.