"Black Gold," now being screened at festivals and art houses, is the latest in a growing genre of documentary films shaking up the business world.
November 27, 2006 (Press Release) --
Starbucks Corp. was one of the companies that turned down interview requests from Nick and Mark Francis when the brothers were shooting their documentary about rampant poverty among Ethiopian coffee growers.
But after "Black Gold" attracted attention at the Sundance Film Festival in January, the coffee giant invited the British brothers to its Seattle headquarters as it prepared for a barrage of bad publicity.
They are taking critiques of corporate power that would once have been the province of newspapers and magazines to movie theaters and DVD shops, where they're finding an increasingly receptive audience.
The trend, which started with "Roger and Me" in 1989 and more recently featured "Super Size Me" and "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," is forcing some corporate targets to counterattack and, some say, even change business practices to dodge claims of unfair wages, unhealthy products or environmental degradation.
"When you're talking about a documentary, it's something that's being presented as if it's fact, so that's a huge problem for companies," said Paul A. Argenti, a professor at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University.
Michael Moore's "Roger and Me" left a lasting blemish on General Motors Corp. for closing its plant in Flint, Mich., and leaving rampant unemployment in its wake.
Morgan Spurlock's 2004 documentary "Super Size Me" assailed McDonald's for pushing high-calorie meals, while last year's Enron film by Alex Gibney showed how internal avarice and corruption brought down the world's largest energy company.
Source: http://www.msn.com
But after "Black Gold" attracted attention at the Sundance Film Festival in January, the coffee giant invited the British brothers to its Seattle headquarters as it prepared for a barrage of bad publicity.
They are taking critiques of corporate power that would once have been the province of newspapers and magazines to movie theaters and DVD shops, where they're finding an increasingly receptive audience.
The trend, which started with "Roger and Me" in 1989 and more recently featured "Super Size Me" and "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," is forcing some corporate targets to counterattack and, some say, even change business practices to dodge claims of unfair wages, unhealthy products or environmental degradation.
"When you're talking about a documentary, it's something that's being presented as if it's fact, so that's a huge problem for companies," said Paul A. Argenti, a professor at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University.
Michael Moore's "Roger and Me" left a lasting blemish on General Motors Corp. for closing its plant in Flint, Mich., and leaving rampant unemployment in its wake.
Morgan Spurlock's 2004 documentary "Super Size Me" assailed McDonald's for pushing high-calorie meals, while last year's Enron film by Alex Gibney showed how internal avarice and corruption brought down the world's largest energy company.
Source: http://www.msn.com
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