Trade not aid. That’s the clear message of this sober, often bleak docu-probe into the international coffee industry. Raking in over $80bn annually, it’s the world’s worst kept secret that corporate suits crushingly short-change coffee suppliers with incredibly low wages. Though lacking Michael Moore’s cutting wit, Black Gold paints an effective if patchy portrait of Third World poverty, charting the efforts of Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union manager Tadesse Meskela to earn his Ethiopian farmers fair pay.
DVD Extras:
Directors’ Q&A – Al-Jazeera Fabulous Picture Show, Directors’ Q&A with Channel 4’s Jon Snow, Live at Sundance / The Making of the Soundtrack, Tadesse – The Latest, A Message from Tadesse – What You Can Do, Trailer.
