Black Gold (U)
Black Gold is presented in conjunction with the Keswick Fairtrade Campaign and as part of the UK-wide 2026 Fairtrade Fortnight.
All tickets are just £6.
Keswick Fair Trade Campaign has been promoting Fairtrade and other fairly traded products since 2003 and Keswick was awarded Fairtrade status by the Fairtrade Foundation in March 2005.
Black Gold will be introduced by Joe Human, trustee of Keswick Fair Trade Campaign, who visited Ethiopia and met Tadesse.
The Sunday Times' Jeff Dawson described the film as "a documentary about inequities in the global coffee
market, in which you can’t help, albeit perversely, feeling a twinge of sympathy for
Starbucks.
It’s not even one of the big four, the über-corporations charged
with bilking Third World farmers, but there it is, as ever, an emblem of
sinister Amero-capitalism."
“We do not consider Black Gold an anti-Starbucks film at all,” protests Marc
Francis who, along with his brother Nick, made the film, “It centres
on the struggle of the coffee farmer, set against the backdrop of our
consumer lifestyle. The problem is that the average person on the street
can’t see Nestlé or Kraft – they’re not as in your face.”
Rare for an “issue” documentary, Black Gold does not batter you with a plan
of action (nor does it fully explore the question of oversupply and the
prospect of crop diversification). “The priority was to unite, not divide,
the audience, and not to preach,” says Marc, “just to let them in on a
journey and decide for themselves.” So, there’s no “blood coffee” to be
boycotted, although Fairtrade-label patronage is implied….
…
Black Gold has its own, very human star in Tadesse Meskela, head of the
Addis Ababa-based Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union. It is this quiet,
dignified man whom the Francises follow around the world, from his local
warehouse to the shelves of Waitrose, trying, at all points, to get his
growers a fair price. “Black Gold is saying: every time you buy a coffee,
just think about people like Tadesse,” says Barbara Crowther of the
Fairtrade Foundation, a movement in tune with the film’s sentiments.
Both Black Gold and Tadesse’s mission have already made their mark. Last
month, after a rumbling standoff about trademarking, Starbucks concluded a
deal with the Ethiopian government that recognises the special status of
Ethiopia’s beans. “We are very much encouraged that our partner, Starbucks,
is signing a licence agreement with us,” trumpets the Ethiopian ambassador
to the UK, Berhanu Kebede. “It will benefit the farmers and their families,
and also customers, who will benefit from future investment in Ethiopia’s
world-class coffees.”
|