True Stories: Black Gold airs on 26th February at 10pm on More 4

True Stories: Black Gold, co-directed by Nick and Marc Francis, is an eye-opening expose of the multi-billion dollar coffee industry and one man’s fight for a fair price. As westerners sip designer lattes and cappuccinos, Ethiopian coffee growers live on the edge of poverty. Black Gold travels from Ethiopia to Seattle, to reveal the stirring story behind our daily cup of coffee.

Through the eyes of Tadesse Meskela, manager of a co-operative union that represents 74,000 Ethiopian coffee farmers, the film highlights the paradox of an industry worth over $80 billion, and the world’s second most valuable trading commodity after oil.

"We wanted to urgently remind audiences that through just one cup of coffee, we are inextricably connected to the livelihoods of millions of people around the world who are struggling to survive," say award-winning co-directors, Marc and Nick Francis.

The cameras follow the coffee industry’s key producers, living in abject poverty, unable to find a fair price for the coffee beans that they harvest; and coffee labourers working all day for under a dollar. A modern-day David and Goliath story is played out as the unstoppable Tadesse travels across the world to find a long term solution for his farmers.

Against this backdrop, the film-makers expose the enormous power of the multinational players that dominate the world's coffee trade. The film shows New York commodity traders, the international coffee exchanges and trade ministers at the World Trade Organisation, negotiating for a stake in Ethiopia's most valuable resource - while Ethiopia itself continues to remain dependent on western aid.

Broadcast on More4 during Fair Trade fortnight, Black Gold raises questions around some of our basic assumptions about our western consumer lifestyle.



For more information on Black Gold, go to: www.channel4.com/blackgold