Black Gold - A Must-see documentary film

News Release | September 18, 2006

"Handsome and astute. The Francises are aces behind the camera, displaying an elegant sense of composition that makes their subject visually ravishing." –Robert Koehler, Variety

Multinational coffee companies rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate an industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil.

But while we continue to pay premium prices for lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their fields.

Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. Tadesse Meskela is one man on a mission to save from bankruptcy the 75,000 struggling coffee farmers of the Oromia Coffee Collective. As these farmers strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans on the market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt to find buyers willing to pay a fair price. BLACK GOLD tells this story in what The Nation has called: "One of the strongest documentaries I’ve seen in the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, or for that matter outside it."

British documentarians Marc and Nick Francis tell an engaging and nuanced story of contrasts, juxtaposing African women sifting coffee beans with bow-tied baristas competing for best cappuccino, and a bustling Starbucks café with a community of farmers foregoing their minimal salary in order to build a school for their children. BLACK GOLD connects the dots of our global economy, putting a human face on a systemic problem largely hidden from the caffeinated consumer.

Courtesy of Abol Coffee Inc., USA

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Screening Dates, Cities and Venues

9/16 Washington DC Amnesty Int'l Film Festival
9/22 Norfolk VA Naro Expanded Cinema - Green Screen
9/29 - 10/1 Newburyport MA Newburyport Film Festival
10/8 & 10/14 Mill Valley CA Mill Valley FF
10/6 New York NY Cinema Village
10/6 Seattle WA Landmark's Metro
10/6 Bellevue WA Lincoln Square
10/11 Portland OR NW Film Center - Amnesty Intl Fest
10/13 Chicago IL Gene Siskel Theater
10/14 - 10/16 Washington DC Green Festival
10/15 - 10/17 Nashville TN Belcourt
10/15 - 10/17 Madison WI Orpheum
10/17 - 10/19 Rhinebeck NY Upstate Films
10/22 San Rafael CA Bioneers (@ 2:45p)
10/22 & 24? Milwaukee WI Milwaukee Film Festival
10/27 Boston MA Coolidge Corner
11/3 Burlington VT Merrill's Roxy
11/3 Boise ID The Flicks
11/4 or 11/7 Pleasantville NY Burns Center
11/5 Ridgewood NJ Reel Voices FF/ Ridgewood Library
11/6 Atlanta GA Georgia Tech
11/10 Atlanta GA Landmark's Midtown Art
10-Nov San Francisco CA Roxie
11/12 Boulder CO U Of Colorado Int'l Film Series
11/12 Savannah GA Reel Savannah
12/8 Washington DC Landmark's E Street
1/18-1/21 Beloit WI Beloit Int'l Film Festival

Courtesy of Abol Coffee Inc.,USA 2006