Fikremariam Tesfaye
24 March 2008
Addis Abeba — Black Gold, a documentary film revolving around the Ethiopian coffee farmers and their ill treatment by the lucrative global coffee industry, was premiered in Ethiopia as the 2nd Addis International Film Festival was launched here on Friday in Addis Ababa.
'BLACK GOLD' film is an alarming and timely feature-length documentary about the global coffee industry, where the spoils of overpriced lanes and cappuccinos are sparsely shared with the people who produce it.
The film particularly depicts how coffee farmers are losing out in a multi-billion dollar coffee industry", this is especially happening in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee.
From Ethiopian bean to Starbucks' cup, we meet coffee drinkers, tasting experts, baristas, and coffee traders and visit the sweatshop production lines, auction houses and roasting plants around the world, said director Nick Francis about his film.
"We will fights to save Ethiopian coffee farmers from bankruptcy- taking on not just the coffee industry, but also the world trading system," said Tadesse Meskela, General Manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union, and films main character told reporters at the Global Hotel.
"I represent 101 Co-operatives and the livelihoods of over 74,000 coffee farmers, which, including their families is over half a million people," Tadesse said.
"Our hope is that one day the consumers will understand what they are drinking. Consumers can bring a change if awareness is given to consumers. It is not only on coffee, all products are getting a very low price - and the producers are highly affected."
Tadesse spends his time meeting coffee buyers who will pay his farmers a better price than the one set by the international commodities exchange.
The second edition of the festival is meant to build on the successes of the 1st but will be broader and deeper in scope than the first, organizers said.
The 2" edition's films focus on the theme 'Organizing the Unorganized' that comprises the topics of women's, workers, children's and youth's rights.
The documentary: Black Gold fields in the hilly Oromia region to the modern town Seattle in the U.S. where the character meets buyers at the annual conference of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA).
The film tackles the problems that Tadesse and his fellow farmers have to face in making a living from demanding buyers and weak local infrastructure to global trade rules that put small farmers in a disadvantage.
Tadesse the film has been shown on major Television stations in the USA, Japan, German and United Kingdom.
He said it was absurd they could not do that in Ethiopia owing to reluctance by the Ethiopian Television, a state controlled media.
The film has however been shown on Friday at Exhibition Center as part of the festival that organizers said would continue for ten days.
The festival was organized by Initiative Africa (IA), a non-profit-making, non-partisan organization based in Ethiopia, which brings together practitioners and theorganizations to improve and establish governance and development practices in Ethiopia and Africa.
Through locally driven development programs and activities, IA promotes the study of public and private governance, strengthens collective empowerment, and facilitates dialogue and knowledge sharing.
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