Keyword Commodities

A snobbish investor and a wily street con-artist find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires.

The supermarket chains used to seem unbeatable, capturing the lion’s share of the grocery market. But for some years now they have been in crisis. In the wake of a fierce price war, retailers are resorting to increasingly aggressive commercial negotiation methods at the expense of suppliers, farmers and producers. Further competition is coming from the tech giants as Amazon and Alibaba invest in the food industry. What are the implications of all these changes on working conditions, the quality of our food and the future of our planet?

The Shipibo-Konibo people of Peruvian Amazon decorate their pottery, jewelry, textiles, and body art with complex geometric patterns called kené. These patterns also have corresponding songs, called icaros, which are integral to the Shipibo way of life. This documentary explores these unique art forms, and one Shipibo family's efforts to safeguard the tradition.

For the first time, a documentary dismantles the mechanisms of this great world trade to economic issues, major political and food, and reveals the daily life of those who are the main players: traders themselves, the men and women who buy , transport, sell merchandise and speculate on changes in their prices. African cotton plantations of the Hong Kong import companies, Brazilian soybean fields in the hall of the Chicago Board of Trade markets, through commercial ports of Santos and Le Havre.

For consumers, bananas are a delicious and nutritious start to the day, a healthy snack and a fixture in our fruit bowls. For millions of residents in the banana lands, the production of bananas means social upheaval, violence and pesticide poisoning. Banana Land explores the origins of these disparate realities, and opens the conversation on how workers, producers and consumers can address this disconnect.