Nothing Like Chocolate

plays with Raise My Hands

(USA, 2012, 67 mins)

World Premiere

Producer: Kum-Kum Bhavnani
Cinematographer: Skye Borgman
Editor: Dave Jenkins, Cristina Malavenda, Ryan Pettey
Featuring: Mott Green, Nelice Stewart, Michael Pollan, Vandana Shiva

Not Yet Rated

Good news: chocolate isn't candy. Created properly, it is beneficial to your health and to your mind, the extracted essence of a sacred fruit.

How that extraction takes place, and what ethical dilemmas might be represented by your next cup of hot cocoa—that's the subject of this eye-opening documentary. Steered by the adroit voice-over narration of Susan Sarandon, the film digs deeply into the geo-economics of the cacao bean. Rather than flog us with statistics, though, it takes a storytelling approach. We meet a lot of very interesting people, many of them the attractive and engaging natives of the Caribbean island Grenada. And we get quite familiar with a true original, a kind of "activist Willie Wonka," named Mott who—clad in t-shirt, shorts, and edgy smile—works without rest to change the way chocolate is delivered to the eager world.

The problem with this crop derives from the vast distance, both geographic and moral, between the world in which it is harvested and the world in which it is processed and sold. So we meet chocolatiers in San Francisco who feel helpless to act against the enslavement of children in West Africa. Author Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food) and physicist / environmental activist Vandana Shiva provide eloquent reminders that our "consumer decisions" have real consequences. She says: "The minute you get global control over a commodity, you get slavery."

- PW

No ticket necessary for this FREE screening sponsored by Whole Foods Market.

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