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
Anti-semitic attacks
The annual report by the Community Security Trust, which advises the Jewish community on security , warned on Thursday that anti-Semitic incidents in Britain had reached a record high.
It found there had been 2,255 anti-Semitic incidents reported in 2021, a rise of 34 per cent from the previous year.
The report detailed the convictions of a number of people for anti-Semitic crimes, including one man who was jailed for setting up a neo-Nazi group which had encouraged “the eradication of Jewish people” and another who had posted anti-Semitic homemade videos on social media.
yallacompare profile
Date of launch: 2014
Founder: Jon Richards, founder and chief executive; Samer Chebab, co-founder and chief operating officer, and Jonathan Rawlings, co-founder and chief financial officer
Based: Media City, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: 120 employees
Investors: 2014: $500,000 in a seed round led by Mulverhill Associates; 2015: $3m in Series A funding led by STC Ventures (managed by Iris Capital), Wamda and Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority; 2019: $8m in Series B funding with the same investors as Series A along with Precinct Partners, Saned and Argo Ventures (the VC arm of multinational insurer Argo Group)
BANGLADESH SQUAD
Mashrafe Mortaza (captain), Tamim Iqbal, Liton Das, Soumya Sarkar, Mushfiqur Rahim (wicketkeeper), Mahmudullah, Shakib Al Hasan (vice captain), Mohammad Mithun, Sabbir Rahaman, Mosaddek Hossain, Mohammad Saifuddin, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Rubel Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Abu Jayed (Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Director: Jon Watts
Stars: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon
Rating:*****
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
The%20Kitchen
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Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
The specs
Engine: 77.4kW all-wheel-drive dual motor
Power: 320bhp
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Last-16 Europa League fixtures
Wednesday (Kick-offs UAE)
FC Copenhagen (0) v Istanbul Basaksehir (1) 8.55pm
Shakhtar Donetsk (2) v Wolfsburg (1) 8.55pm
Inter Milan v Getafe (one leg only) 11pm
Manchester United (5) v LASK (0) 11pm
Thursday
Bayer Leverkusen (3) v Rangers (1) 8.55pm
Sevilla v Roma (one leg only) 8.55pm
FC Basel (3) v Eintracht Frankfurt (0) 11pm
Wolves (1) Olympiakos (1) 11pm
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
THE%20HOLDOVERS
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T20 World Cup Qualifier
Final: Netherlands beat PNG by seven wickets
Qualified teams
1. Netherlands
2. PNG
3. Ireland
4. Namibia
5. Scotland
6. Oman
T20 World Cup 2020, Australia
Group A: Sri Lanka, PNG, Ireland, Oman
Group B: Bangladesh, Netherlands, Namibia, Scotland
Teams
Pakistan: Sarfraz Ahmed (captain), Mohammad Hafeez, Sahibzada Farhan, Babar Azam, Shoaib Malik, Asif Ali, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Usman Khan Shanwari, Hasan Ali, Imad Wasim, Faheem Ashraf.
New Zealand: Kane Williamson (captain), Corey Anderson, Mark Chapman, Lockie Ferguson, Colin de Grandhomme, Adam Milne, Colin Munro, Ajaz Patel, Glenn Phillips, Seth Rance, Tim Seifert, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor.
The biog
Name: Mohammed Imtiaz
From: Gujranwala, Pakistan
Arrived in the UAE: 1976
Favourite clothes to make: Suit
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Transmission: 9-speed automatic
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On sale: Now
Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas
Starring: Rose, Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa
Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong
Rating: 3/5
In-demand jobs and monthly salaries
- Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
- Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
- Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
- Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
- HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
- Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
- Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
- Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
- Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
- Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
- Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
- Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
- Field supervisor: Dh9,000 to Dh12,000
- Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
MATCH INFO
Barcelona 4 (Messi 23' pen, 45 1', 48', Busquets 85')
Celta Vigo 1 (Olaza 42')
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Director: Peyton Reed
Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas
Three stars