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Black Gold (DVD)
Year:
Rating: G
Release Date: September 23, 2009
Distributor: Madman
The Film: 4.0
The Disc: 3.0
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5
Following Tadesse Meskela, the manager of a major coffee co-op in Ethiopia, Black Gold - directed by British brothers Marc and Nick Francis - is a sharply entertaining documentary that addresses the imbalance between the buyers and the sellers on the world coffee market. In a nutshell, whilst prices sit near all-time lows, consumption is booming, making coffee the world\'s second most valuable trade commodity (after oil). This directly benefits its four dominant sellers (Sara Lee, Nestle, Procter & Gamble, and Kraft), which buy according to a price benchmark set exclusively by the New York Board Of Trade. Meskela travels to New York to watch the market in action, Seattle for a barista competition, Italy to see how classy brand Illy manages, and back to Ethiopia to witness the severe poverty of coffee growers throughout the third world. All the while, his warm tone is not hectoring or judgemental, but weary and bemused.
Although swimming with data, Black Gold avoids the academic tone that too many of its lefty-doco cousins adopt, putting a human face on the issue and advocating legitimately attainable solutions. It\'s the rarest of breeds: a well-shot, finely constructed and even funny film about a depressingly complex world problem. Special features include extra footage and a director\'s Q&A.