If you’re a fair trade activist who’s been looking for something hard hitting yet accessible to get others into this issue, Black Gold is it.
Yes, we already have short videos from Oxfam and TransFair USA. But Black Gold does more than that.
What this film does brilliantly is juxtapose the bon vivants of the western world (us) — delicately sipping their high-priced espresso drinks — with the crushingly poor farmers producing those same espresso beans.
After a long day at the Equal Exchange summit, four of us watched this film Saturday night in Boston, on my laptop, We got a copy of the DVD from Tadesse, the Ethiopean dude featured in the film, shown travelling all over the world in an effort to get a better price for the farmers he represents.
Jordan, one of the wachees, had actually worked in the Ethiopian towns shown in the film. “I think this was a really valiant effort,” he said. “This is the best one [film about fair trade] that I’ve seen.” [Tadesse and me at Logan airport on Sunday morning]
Black Gold isn’t didactic. No one’s narrating; no one’s providing a clear or clean “analysis” of the situation. The film just shows us what some of the problems are — from the unfair farm subsidies of western countries, to the less-than-level playing ground at the WTO, to the aid the west provides to African countries in lieu of fair trade.
Of course, we each had our own ideas about other stuff the film coulda / shoulda covered but didn’t / couldn’t.
Some quotes from our discussion afterwards: The film could’ve gotten into “what the international coffee laws used to do. I feel like it didn’t get too into detail about what kinds of market regulation solutions could’ve been.” The film could’ve talked about “what different actors think the solution could be.” The film could’ve covered “why coffee market prices are so low.”
But one film can’t do everything, and overall, Black Gold really does a helluva lot. Already, Starbucks is feeling the heat.
Wanna see it? LA peeps can see Black Gold between August 18 - 24, cuz the film’s been selected for Docuweek, hosted at the Arclight Hollywood. The rest of the country should be able to see it in theaters in Sept. and Oct.
In the meantime, here’s an interview with Nick, one of the directors, on CNN.
Update, 8/15/06: Here’s the schedule for the screenings :)
July 19th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Siel, you’re so funny cause it seems like so many of your posts reference people, places, things that are in my world, and sometimes its like reading my own mind on someone else’s blog!
Tadesse and I hung out just the other day. I used to live in Ethiopia and he was one of the first people I met there. I spent a couple days with him touring around coffee regions and he hooked up many of my visitors with similar tours when they were visiting Ethiopia (like folks from 10,000 Villages, Peace COffee, Higher Grounds, and even my Mom!).
One of these here days we’ll have to meet. Only thing is, I really can’t say I’m a fan of LA (I’ve visited many times but can’t see going back any time soon). Santa Monica is sort of an exception though. I actually work closely with some of the city’s procurement officers on sourcing green products.
On the other hand, if you ever make it to Washington, D.C., we must have some drinks and share stories. It seems like half the people you run with are friends of mine.
Cheerios,
Chris
July 21st, 2006 at 4:55 pm
Just the other day? Was that last Sunday? Cuz Tadesse and I both flew to Dulles last Sunday — which is why we came together to the Logan airport — thus the pic above — but our flights were an hour apart and he’d already checked his luggage so he couldn’t change to my earlier flight. (He wanted to get to the airport early cuz he gets picked for searches a lot, but there were no probs this time.)
I actually ended up sticking around the Dulles airport for a couple hrs cuz the flight from there to LA got delayed, so if you’d been at the airport to meet Tadesse, the 3 of us coulda potentially gotten a cuppa coffee or something. Oh well –
BTW, don’t talk shit about my city :P Your airport doesn’t even have wifi! :P
August 16th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
Yeah but when you walk outside Dulles you get a dose of fresh Virginia air, not a bunch of LA smog.
September 27th, 2006 at 8:04 am
I saw the movie and it was excellent! If I drank coffee, it would definitely make me buy fair trade.
Highly recommended film.
September 27th, 2006 at 11:44 pm
Glad to hear, Michael :) Just an FYI — If you want, you can volunteer –