Film Screening:

Black Gold

(Nick and Mark Francis, 2006, 74 min, USA, in Amharic, Oromiffa and English w/ English subtitles, Color, DVD) 

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.

 -- Winner for Best Achievement in Production in British Independent Film Awards (2007) and Best Documentary in Libertas Film Festival and in San Francisco Black Film Festival (2006)!

“Poetic and hard-hitting critique of the global coffee industry... Beautifully shot and edited” -- Washington Post

Cost: Free and open to the public

Sponsors: Kenan Institute for Ethics, and the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image (AMI).