Msia Kibona Clark
30 October 2006
column
Washington, DC — Black Gold: Wake up and Smell the Coffee
Filmed, Directed & Produced by Marc Francis and Nick Francis
78Minutes
The subject of this documentary are the unfair profits that coffee growers in Ethiopia get in relation to to the huge profits multinationals like Nestle, Proctor and Gamble, and Starbucks make every year. Much of the documentary follows Tadesse Meskela, a representative of the Oromio Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union in Southern Ethiopia. Meskela and the Union's struggle is to save 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy. The film also shows the struggles of developing countries in trying to get their voices heard at the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Fifth Ministerial Conference in Cancún, Mexico in 2003. The WTO sets the rules for the global trading system and the film shows how those rules are often determined in favor of the wealthier Western members.
Viewers need not be well versed in the ins and outs of the coffee industry to follow this film. The filmmakers have taken coffee, the leading export for Ethiopia, which is the largest exporter of coffee in Africa, and shown how the unfair international market prices put Africa at a disadvantage. According to the filmmakers the multinationals who deal in coffee make an estimated USD$80+ billion a year, "making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil". The amount that trickles down to the African coffee growers (who's governments cannot afford to subsidize them) severely undercuts the worth of both their products and their labor.
The film, released this year, is making quite a buzz and is making the rounds at film festivals all over America, including the Sundance Film Festival. For more information on the film and showings in your area see the film's Web site: BlackGoldMovie.com. The film is also available at California Newsreel.
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