Dubai had a rare cinematic treat recently when one of the biggest names in global documentary filmmaking flew into town for a pair of exclusive screenings and Q&A sessions at The Scene Club for her latest film, A Small Section of the World.
Lesley Chilcott's name may not be as recognisable as the likes of Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock, but as a producer on Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for "Superman" and It Might Get Loud – all of which sit proudly among the top 100 grossing documentaries of all time – she is well-known.
A Small Section of the World marks Chilcott's feature-length directorial debut, and she was in Dubai courtesy of OSN and the Sundance Channel to screen the movie ahead of its regional television premiere, alongside It Might Get Loud, on Sundance on February 7.
A Small Section of the World tells the story of a group of Costa Rican women who revolutionised the coffee industry when they set up a women's coffee-producing collective following the departure of their husbands and sons to look for work in cities or neighbouring countries after the price of coffee collapsed in the mid 1990s.
Chilcott and her husband own a farm in Costa Rica but were completely unaware of La Asociación de Mujeres Organizadas de Biolley / The Organized Women’s Association of Biolley (Asomobi) until an unlikely chain of events was set in motion by the Italian coffee giant Illy.
“No one in Costa Rica has even heard of Biolley,” says Chilcott. “You just have to say it’s in the Talamanca Mountains. That just shows how remote it is. It’s just a tiny coffee mill on top of a hill. I have to admit that the story really did come to me.
“Illy is one of few coffee companies that sends agronomists out to the field, and one came back telling them about these amazing women they’d been buying coffee from. Illy is a big contributor to the arts in Europe and wanted to make a film about it, so they contacted a production company in Los Angeles, GreenLight.”
Red lights begin to flash when Chilcott mentions the involvement of Illy – coffee companies are not known for their social responsibility – but having watched the film, it’s safe to say this is far from a piece of corporate marketing.
“It was a surprise to me,” says Chilcott. “As a serious documentary producer, I was immediately: ‘I can’t make a branded documentary’. But they insisted they wanted me to tell the story I wanted to tell. I had final cut, which meant a lot to me, and they let me put all sorts in there about fair prices for farmers, price volatility and so on.”
Once Chilcott agreed to take on the project, she immediately embarked on an exhaustive study of the history and politics of coffee, which, as a tea drinker, she felt was crucial to the film.
But more importantly, she learnt that following a major crisis, when the cost of producing coffee outstripped the price of selling it in the 90s, the women and children of Biolley found themselves essentially abandoned in a region with no industry other than coffee.
The movie charts the women’s attempts, starting in 1997, to convince farmers to let them use their land, to build their own roasters, then build their own mill and, ultimately, after many years and failed attempts, succeed in producing high-end coffee that was able to rise above the continuing slump in prices.
The Costa Rican model has now spread far and wide.
“As you see in the film, Asomobi was the first women’s micro mill in Costa Rica,” says Chilcott. “There are others now, and through a group called the International Women’s Coffee Alliance the story has spread to women in Burundi, in Kenya, in Uganda. They’re all following the Asomobi model.”
• A Small Section of the World will debut on the Sundance Channel, exclusively available through OSN, on February 7. The movie is available on major video on demand channels, including iTunes, Google Play and Amazon Instant
cnewbould@thenational.ae
SQUADS
South Africa:
JP Duminy (capt), Hashim Amla, Farhaan Behardien, Quinton de Kock (wkt), AB de Villiers, Robbie Frylinck, Beuran Hendricks, David Miller, Mangaliso Mosehle (wkt), Dane Paterson, Aaron Phangiso, Andile Phehlukwayo, Dwaine Pretorius, Tabraiz Shamsi
Bangladesh
Shakib Al Hasan (capt), Imrul Kayes, Liton Das (wkt), Mahmudullah, Mehidy Hasan, Mohammad Saifuddin, Mominul Haque, Mushfiqur Rahim (wkt), Nasir Hossain, Rubel Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Shafiul Islam, Soumya Sarkar, Taskin Ahmed
Fixtures
Oct 26: Bloemfontein
Oct 29: Potchefstroom
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
FA Cup quarter-final draw
The matches will be played across the weekend of 21 and 22 March
Sheffield United v Arsenal
Newcastle v Manchester City
Norwich v Derby/Manchester United
Leicester City v Chelsea
KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN MARITIME DISPUTE
2000: Israel withdraws from Lebanon after nearly 30 years without an officially demarcated border. The UN establishes the Blue Line to act as the frontier.
2007: Lebanon and Cyprus define their respective exclusive economic zones to facilitate oil and gas exploration. Israel uses this to define its EEZ with Cyprus
2011: Lebanon disputes Israeli-proposed line and submits documents to UN showing different EEZ. Cyprus offers to mediate without much progress.
2018: Lebanon signs first offshore oil and gas licencing deal with consortium of France’s Total, Italy’s Eni and Russia’s Novatek.
2018-2019: US seeks to mediate between Israel and Lebanon to prevent clashes over oil and gas resources.
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
The specs
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8
Power: 611bhp
Torque: 620Nm
Transmission: seven-speed automatic
Price: upon application
On sale: now
A little about CVRL
Founded in 1985 by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory (CVRL) is a government diagnostic centre that provides testing and research facilities to the UAE and neighbouring countries.
One of its main goals is to provide permanent treatment solutions for veterinary related diseases.
The taxidermy centre was established 12 years ago and is headed by Dr Ulrich Wernery.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
