Black Gold Reviews

It is attractively shot, thoughtfully edited, provocatively argued, and might just have you turning its issues over in your mind late into the night - or is that just the effect of so much coffee?

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 4/5

While the film is quick to posit fair trade as a solution, it fails to answer why, even with Meskela's admirable initiatives, his coffee farmers still struggle to buy shoes.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 3/5

If you don't buy Fair Trade coffee after this you never will.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 3/5

A worthy look at an exploitation that really shouldn't exist in this day and age, Black Gold will hopefully shock audiences into looking for the Fairtrade symbol next time they're in the supermarket.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 3/5

True, fair trade coffee is not the newest story around, but Black Gold still makes for arresting viewing.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 3/5

Contrast that with shots of the grower's malnourished children relying on emergency foreign aid and it's enough to make your blood boil - never mind the coffee.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 4/5

Intimate interviews with starving farmers selling beans for 24p a kilo while we pay 2 a cup will make you appreciate the importance of fair-trade when ordering your next double-shot, skinny latte.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 3/5

While it may prompt some to think again next time they're in Starbucks, this astute insight into the coffee business is better at lauding the good guys than taking the multinationals to task for the iniquities of the global economy.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 3/5

The Francis brothers maintain a lively pace and a satirical mood.

Full Review | Comment

An important and timely film that may make you think twice before downing your next cup of joe.

Comment | Original Score: 3.5/4

Whether due to resources or time or just plain laziness, directors Marc and Nick Francis have fashioned a rather shapeless movie that raises many good points but fails to fully investigate its findings.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 2.5/4

If that $2 cup of Starbucks didn't jolt you awake, this documentary by Marc and Nick Francis might do the trick.

Full Review | Comment

Black Gold moves at an inexorable pace, painstakingly building a case until suddenly it looms very large and casts an even longer shadow.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 4.5/5

... there is an additional irony to the title: The raw beans are not themselves black, but the growers are.

Comment

The film's effectiveness is bolstered by juxtaposed scenes of fat and happy Americans and Europeans slurping up frozen chai lattes and clucking about how big Starbuck's is getting with scenes of children going into 'therapeutic feeding centers'.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 4/5

Black Gold raises issues in an engaging way without preaching or becoming a lesson in economics. At the end of it all you will certainly be looking for those Fair Trade stickers.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 4/4

Warm relaxing pace becomes languishing, most of the beans have been spilt by the halfway mark. Still, it's definitely educational, an effective call to action.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 2/4

The premise powerfully postulated here is that not only Ethiopians, but millions and millions of other Africans are suffering due to the paltry prices paid by big business for natural resources which most people from developed countries take for granted.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 4/4

Punctuated by long shots of foggy mountainsides as well as very close shots of glistening green coffee beans on the tree, the film makes its argument with the help of an evocative score by Andreas Kapsalis.

Full Review | Comment

Economic repression by competitive market forces is a systemic injustice in this corner of the marketplace.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 3.5/5