Black Gold

The Bigger Picture
Director: Marc Francis and Nick Francis | Countries of production: United Kingdom, United States | Year: 2006 | Length: 77 min
Language: English, Italian with English subtitles | Certificate: U Cert

Do you know the real cost of your cappuccino?

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 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.

This film is supported by the Bertha DocFactory.

“Stimulating – Black Gold has roused sufficient outrage to frighten some of the biggest coffee corporations into justifying their buying practices.”
Sunday Herald

Black Gold is the latest in a growing genre of documentary films shaking up the business world.”
International Herald Tribune

BIFA, Winner
Sundance Film Festival, Official selection

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