Nothing Like Chocolate (Kum-Kum Bhavnani, 2011): USA

Reviewed by Linda Lopez.  Viewed at the SBIFF.

“Nothing Like Chocolate” is a must-see film!  Why?  Because everyone loves chocolate!

If you’re like me, you never think about where cocoa comes from when you bite into a mouth-watering chocolate bar.  After seeing “Nothing Like Chocolate,” produced and directed by Kum-Kum Bhavnani, I think twice about chocolate before buying it.

Kum-Kum Bhavnani brought her heart and soul to this film and as a result, she captured the essence of Grenada and its people.  In the film, we meet memorable Grenadians up-close in conversations and watching their daily lives.  We watch how cacao beans are harvested and processed into chocolate liquor (dark chocolate).  To make a chocolate bar, the basic ingredients are cocoa, sugar and vanilla, and a bit of lecithin.

The world hasn’t heard much about Grenada since 1983, when U.S. troops landed on the tiny island in the Caribbean.  However, with the release of “Nothing  Like Chocolate,” Grenada is back on the world map.

Kum-Kum Bhavnani also brought the world’s attention to Mott Green, an amazing man who is following his passion.  It takes a village to raise a child, and in this case, Mott Green turned a village around to become self-sufficient under sustainable living conditions, which in turn increased their standards of living.  Mott Green uses only organic cocoa beans grown locally by the co-operative farmers to make his chocolate using antique recycled equipment.  The Grenada Chocolate Company (GCC) is now providing a sustainable community in Grenada in that they receive fair prices for their organic cocoa beans.  The GCC is now producing and exporting chocolate thanks to Mott Green, who moved to the island from Oregon in 1998, and later formed a co-operative for the Grenadian cocoa farmers.

Mott Green is reaching out to chocolate companies to sell his chocolate, literally carrying chocolate bar sampes in a suitcase, not only for his co-operative but to offset the injustices on the other side of the Atlantic on the Ivory Coast of West Africa.  The Ivory Coast exports tons of cocoa every year where child slave labor is used to harvest the cacao.  Parents sell their children to plantations where they are enslaved, beaten, and live under very harsh conditions.  In 2001, the International Labor Organization estimated that there were 378,000 children working the fields in the Ivory Coast.  More recently, those figures have dropped down to 200,000 children, but the ideal situation is zero slave labor.

I was at the Metro screening of “Nothing Like Chocolate” and was astounded that Mott Green was there sitting with the audience.  When he stood before the audience, we all stood up and gave him a standing ovation.   Mott Green is truly an inspiration for us all for doing the right thing.  And Kum-Kum Bhavnani did the right thing in producing this film.  My hat goes off to her and her amazing film crew, which was remarkably only a handful of dedicated people to make such a powerful film.