As westerners revel in designer lattes and cappuccinos, impoverished Ethiopian coffee growers suffer the bitter taste of injustice. In this eye-opening expose of the multi-billion dollar coffee industry, Black Gold traces one man’s fight for a fair price. Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil. But while we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields. Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. Tadesse Meskela is one man on a mission to save his 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy. As his farmers strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans on the international market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt to find buyers willing to pay a fair price. Against the backdrop of Tadesse’s journey to London and Seattle, the enormous power of the multinational players that dominate the world’s coffee trade becomes apparent. New York commodity traders, the international coffee exchanges, and the double dealings of trade ministers at the World Trade Organisation reveal the many challenges Tadesse faces in his quest for a long term solution for his farmers.
Film Crew
- : Marc Francis
- : Marc Francis
- : Nick Francis
- : Nick Francis
- : Marc Francis
- : Oistein Thorsen
- : Claire Lewis
- : Nick Francis
- : Christopher Hird
- : Gerard Abeille
- : Andreas Kapsalis
- : Hugh Williams
Technical Information
- Couleur
- Amharic, English, Italian
Keywords
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Videos
Bande annonce
Tadesse Meskela is on a mission to save struggling coffee farmers in Ethiopia from bankruptcy by traveling the world to find buyers willing to pay a fair price.-
...its exposé of coffee companies’ rapacious tactics jolts more than a triple espresso. Intimate interviews with starving farmers selling beans for 24p a kilo while we pay £2 a cup will make you appreciate the importance of fair-trade when ordering your next double-shot, skinny latte.
Total Film -
What is impressive about Black Gold is that directors Nick and Marc Francis, in their debut, take such a relaxed approach. Instead of hammering points home left, right and centre with a righteous voiceover, the documentary makers take a back seat and allow the audience to make up their mind. Although, we are gently persuaded to go with the flow.
Gavin Burke, Entertainment.ie -
Brothers Marc and Nick Francis deliver a by turns poetic and hard-hitting critique of the global coffee industry…
Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
