Being The Change We Want To See

Longtime Ten Thousand Villages volunteer and current board member Taylor Overstreet wrote this article for MISSION DRIVEN, the blog for Greenlights for NonProfit Success.  Taylor shared her excitement (and OURS) for the Austin Fair Trade Film Festival and detailed the process of planning such an event.

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Posted on May 7, 2010 by Taylor Overstreet

Disclaimer: I’m a longtime volunteer and current board member at Ten Thousand Villages of Austin, so please forgive me in advance for swelling with pride during this post!

For nonprofit fair trade organization Ten Thousand Villages of Austin, the big idea was a film festival to raise awareness about fair trade.  A few months ago, board member and volunteer Sharon Matheny had the idea to hold the first annual fair trade film festival in Austin, in conjunction with World Fair Trade Day, held on the second Saturday in May each year.  Ten Thousand Villages of Austin has celebrated for the past several years, but this year, we decided to go big.

But first, we needed to answer three big questions – what, who and how?

1. What do we want to accomplish? Awareness? Fundraising? Recruiting? For this event, awareness was our primary goal. World Fair Trade Day has connected us year after year to people and celebrations all over the world. It’s a special opportunity to celebrate with our local community and to build awareness about fair trade products and the artisans behind them. There are still lots of folks who don’t know about fair trade, so it was important for us to educate in an informal way that is fun for everyone. Film seemed like a natural conduit because of the vibrant film community that already exists in Austin. We decided to include a panel discussion following each film to create a true dialogue as part of raising awareness.

2. Who should be involved? We love our local partners, and the idea of a film festival in Austin just didn’t make sense at any other place than the Alamo Drafthouse. Our timing coincided perfectly with the campaign to secure the Fair Trade Towndesignation for Austin, and that group has played a tremendous role. We turned to our existing partnerships and made new relationships in the process to secure sponsorships from Texas Coffee Traders, Handmade Expressions, The Progressive Populist, Transfair USA, Novica, Texas Fair Trade Coalition, Eastside Cafe, Dominican Joe, Nada Moo, Maine Root Handcrafted Beverages, Austin Tan Cerca de la Frontera,Austin Local & Fair Trade, Ethical City, Marigold-Gateway to India, Fair Trade a Day, and Etnik Fashions. Finally, nothing happens without our volunteers. They have been instrumental leading up to the big day and will be a big part of our success.

3. How do we get there? While the film festival is not a fundraiser, we needed funds to make it happen. We set up a KickStarter fundraising page and set a modest fundraising goal that basically covered our costs. We asked a local designer to donate his time designing a logo for our festival t-shirts, and our fabulous volunteer crew galvanized into action to spread the word via Facebook, e-mail, and good old-fashioned word of mouth.

In an effort to build more connections with the nonprofit community, Ten Thousand Villages of Austin recently became a member of Greenlights. Big ideas aren’t so daunting when you have the support that this community provides. It’s our first time trying this experiment, but that’s what big ideas are all about. How big? The festival, the first of its kind, includes three documentary films, panel discussions, a Fair Trade Market, artisan demonstrations, and (because it’s Austin) live music.

What’s your big idea?

What Price Free Speech?

We are so thrilled with the local news coverage of the Austin Fair Trade Film Festival.  The Austin Chronicle ran this story Thursday and our thanks to the Chronicle and to Richard Whittaker for helping spread the word – and the facts.

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The Politics of Food Production

Austin’s first Fair Trade Film Festival sparks controversy

BY RICHARD WHITTAKER

If you’ve ever seen the Fair Trade logo on your coffee and wondered what it meant, then Austin’s first ever Fair Trade Film Festival might clear up what’s in your cup.

So what is Fair Trade? Employers and exporters in developing nations who agree to abide by certain good employment and trade practices – such as allowing democratic collectives and opposing child labor – can put the Fair Trade logo on their products. That means ethical shoppers in developed nations know which products to buy to support the right firms and keep their money away from the bad ones. Festival organizer Sharon Matheny explained, “[Fair Trade] recognizes that the majority of goods that Americans buy and consume are produced outside the United States, and the people who produce it are usually not paid a living wage.” Even though the first Fair Trade supply chains were established in the 1940s and more than $4 billion worth of certified goods are sold every year, Matheny said, “most Americans are not aware of this type of economic practice.” That’s why she’s organizing this film festival – to get the word out.

While she hopes this will be an annual event, it’s starting small, with three films, panel discussions, artisan demonstrations, and a Fair Trade market. In selecting the lineup, Matheny said, “We wanted to show films that deal with the major topics in Fair Trade.” Buyer Be Fair: The Promise of Product Certification tracks the path of coffee from Mexican growers to European consumers, while Maquilapolis (City of Factories) uses footage shot by female factory workers along the Mexican border. Matheny said: “It concentrates on the sweatshops that manufacture most American electronics that do not come from Asia. They’re the source of considerable economic instability right in our own backyard.”

There was a shadow hanging over the third film: The Price of Sugar, the Paul Newman-narrated, South by Southwest 2007 Emerging Visions audience award-winning documentary about sugar harvesters in the Dominican Republic. “Most people don’t realize that the majority of sugarcane in the United States comes from the plantations dealt with in this film,” said Matheny. It contains serious allegations about how one family of plantation owners, the Vicinis, treats its laborers. On April 8, Washington, D.C.-based lobbyists Patton Boggs sent letters to the festival organizers claiming that the film is “rife with errors.” It noted that they are suing the filmmakers on the Vicinis’ behalf for defamation and claimed its distributors, New Yorker Films, suspended DVD production “to avoid being sued and possible ‘repeater’ liability.” (In fact, the producers told Matheny that the distributors went bust, and the film is available for group screenings viawww.thepriceofsugar.com.)

Initially, the festival organizers feared they might end up in court if they screened the doc (see “Naked City,” News, April 23). In the last week, Patton Boggs clarified that it just wanted one of its people to take part in the panel discussion and include the Vicinis’ side of things. Matheny said, “We’ll absolutely extend them the courtesy.”

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KVUE News also interviewed Sharon Methany, a Ten Thousand Villages Board Member who is on the film festival’s planning committee.  Our thanks to Sharon, and  to all those working so hard to make this festival a reality.

An Interesting Turn of Events

The Austin Fair Trade Film Festival has recently hit a speed bump due to legal issues surrounding the screening of the film, The Price of Sugar. The local paper, The Austin Chronicle, ran a brief article on-line today:

Suing Over ‘Price of Sugar’

D.C.-based lobby firm Patton Boggs is pressuring a local nonprofit to cancel its planned screening of an award-winning documentary. The Price of Sugar is among the films scheduled at the Austin Fair Trade Film Festival, a May 8 event to be held by Ten Thousand Villages of Austin at the Alamo Drafthouse South. The documentary, which won the South by Southwest 2007 Emerging Visions audience award and is available through Netflix, examines human rights abuses in the Dominican Republic. The Austin store received a letter on April 8 from Patton Boggs asking them to cancel the screening, claiming the film contains inaccuracies about its clients the Vicini family and noting that the film’s producers are currently being sued for defamation. Attorneys told festival organizers that they, too, could be sued if the screening goes ahead. The store’s board of directors will meet May 2 to consider its options. Board member Sharon Matheny said she worries that, even though Patton Boggs cannot legally block the screening, the festival may dump the film to avoid being sued. She explained, “If you’re standing in the way of a speeding semi, and everyone’s telling you, ‘It’s ridiculous, but he’s going to keep going and run over you,’ are you just going to stand there?” – Richard Whittaker