Kickstarter

We would like to present a Fair Trade Film Festival to celebrate World Fair Trade Day 2010. Our goal is to promote awareness and education of fair trade business practices.

The festival will take place Saturday, May 8, 2010 from 12pm-9pm at the locally owned Original Alamo Drafthouse Theater on South Lamar. It's worth going just to see the preshow, right?!

This would be the first film festival of its kind in Austin, TX. We're starting out small to get the buzz going, then next year we'll include more films. Next year, we also want to have a short film competition to get everyone involved in promoting fair trade! So this year could be the beginning of an Austin tradition!

There are three documentary films we'd like to screen that deal with different aspects of fair trade. Below is a description of each one, along with links to more info. After each film, we will have Q&A panels with experts and community leaders on trade economics, social justice, and sustainability.

The money is for the theater rental and films. Since Ten Thousand Villages of Austin is a 501c3, your donation is TAX DEDUCTIBLE. We will issue you a receipt once the donations are processed. Any money above our goal of $6000 will be put toward advertising/promotions, hiring local world music bands, and hiring local world dance groups.

***We want to emphasize that 100% of the money would be used for the film festival, NOT for our nonprofit operations.

This event is organized by:
+Ten Thousand Villages of Austin (http://www.austin.tenthousandvillages.com)
+Austin Fair Trade Town (http://fairtradeaustin.ning.com/)

Presenting sponsorship by:
+Ten Thousand Villages of Austin (http://www.austin.tenthousandvillages.com)
+Texas Coffee Traders (http://www.texascoffeetraders.com/)

Major sponsorship by:
+Handmade Expressions (http://www.handmadeexpressions.net)
+Novica (http://www.novica.com)
+The Progressive Populist (http://www.populist.com/)
+Texas Fair Trade Coalition
+Eastside Cafe (http://www.eastsidecafeaustin.com/)
+Dominican Joe / Makarios (http://www.dominicanjoe.com ; http://makariosinternational.org)
+NadaMoo (http://www.nadamoo.com/)

Supporting sponsorship by:
+Maine Root Handcrafted Beverages (http://www.maineroot.com)
+Austin Tan Cerca de la Frontera
+Austin Local & Fair Trade (http://www.austinlocalfairtrade.com)
+Ethical City (http://www.ethicalcity.com)
+Marigold--Gateway to India (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php...)
+Etnik Fashions (http://www.etnikfashions.com/)
+Fair Trade A Day (http://www.fairtradeaday.com)

Preshow short film (before all three feature films):
“Fair Trade Coffee Production in the Monteverde Cloud Forest”
High in the mountains of the Monteverde region of Costa Rica, some of the world's best coffee is grown. Coope Santa Elena is made up of 75 small coffee producers who are committed to growing their crops in environmentally friendly ways. Monteverde is also an internationally known research area for cloud forests. Sonya Hernandez at University of Georgia has done a bird population study in the shade-grown coffee in this region. Produced by Patricia Ortiz.
Sponsored by TEXAS COFFEE TRADERS, sellers of Café Monteverde. http://www.texascoffeetraders.com/

Films:
MAQUILAPOLIS [city of factories] (2006) As Carmen and a million other maquiladora workers produce televisions, electrical cables, toys, clothes, batteries and IV tubes, they also confront labor violations, environmental devastation and urban chaos. As they work for change, the world changes too: a global economic crisis and the availability of cheaper labor in China begin to pull the factories away from Tijuana, leaving Carmen and her colleagues with an uncertain future.
http://www.maquilapolis.com/project_eng.htm

THE PRICE OF SUGAR (2007) Follows Father Christopher Hartley as he organizes Haiti's poorest people to fight for their basic human rights. They toil under armed-guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane, much of which ends up in U.S. kitchens. This film raises key questions about where the products we consume originate and at what human cost they are produced. Narrated by Paul Newman. http://www.thepriceofsugar.com/about.shtml

BUYER BE FAIR: The Promise of Product Certification (2006) Takes viewers to Mexico, the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden, the USA and Canada to explore how conscious consumers and businesses can use the market to promote social justice and environmental sustainability through product labeling, with a focus on Fair Trade coffee and Forest Stewardship Council certified wood.
http://www.buyerbefair.org/