THE CHOCOLATE WAR is a documentary by director and journalist Miki Mistrati shedding a light on child slavery in the cocoa and chocolate industry.
Human rights lawyer Terry Collingsworth is working hard to bring justice to the chocolate industry and has dedicated his life to convict Nestlé and Cargill of systematically exploiting children in Ivory Coast cocoa production.
THE CHOCOLATE WAR follows Collingsworth for five years in his lonely fight against the multi-billion-dollar chocolate industry and their army of lawyers.
Why do we as an international community tolerate child slavery? Perhaps it is only us, the consumers, who can create the change that the industry should have taken care of long ago?
THE CHOCOLATE WAR is nominated for a Cinema for Peace Award, for Best Documentary at Warsaw International Film Festival, selected for the Human Rights Film Festival in Berlin, Toronto Food Festival, nominated as Best TV documentary at Rai´s Prix Italia and selected for Films for future Festival in Zurich.
HELP US END
CHILD SLAVERY
An international impact campaign for THE CHOCOLATE WAR is now launched, with the goal to create worldwide awareness on child slavery in the cocoa and chocolate industry, and engage consumers and decision makers to act and care for a sustainable supply chain. We arrange private and public screenings through impact partners, online campaigns, promotion and engagement through TV broadcast and streaming. Educational material for the THE CHOCOLATE WAR is developed as a ‘food for thought’ dilemma game targeting 13-17-year-old students. By presenting the students with different dilemmas that people in West African countries face, the educational material wants to give the students a deeper understanding of the poverty issues that are the foundation of child slavery. The educational material will also activate discussions about the chocolate industry as well as the consumer’s responsibility for a sustainable supply chain.
There is no doubt that the best place for children to work is in school and not in the cacao fields.
Impact campaign for THE CHOCOLATE WAR aligns with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:
CALL TO ACTION
RAISE AWARENESS
Help us raise awareness on child slavery in the cocoa and chocolate industry. Please promote THE CHOCOLATE WAR and the film's important messages on your website, social media, and in newsletters.
Download promotional material here.
#TheChocolateWar
ARRANGE SCREENINGS
Arrange a screening of THE CHOCOLATE WAR for your network, employees at your company, or screen and discuss the film as part of a CSR event, conference etc.
Contact: hello@madeincopenhagen.dk if you want to arrange a screening. It is also possible to invite human rights lawyer Terry Collingsworth or director Miki Mistati to stir a relevant debate after a screening.
AS A CONSUMER
Where does your chocolate come from? As a consumer, care for a sustainable supply chain. Until the major companies stop abusing the children and farmers in Ivory Coast and Ghana, purchase only chocolate that is made by craft producers who properly support cocoa farmers and make sure that children are in school. You can get a list of model producers at www.slavefreechocolate.org
FAIR PRICE FOR THE FARMERS
Chocolate producers need to pay a fair price for cocoa - something they could agree to do tomorrow. Currently, only 6 per cent of the price of a chocolate bar goes to the farmer. The world's seven big cocoa giants effectively act as a cartel depressing the price they pay for cocoa beans, way farmers traffic and exploit children in order to feed their own families. Can the chocolate giants afford to pay a fair price for their cocoa? Mondelez's CEO (owner of Cadburys) earns £18 million a year. Cargill made $113.5 billion in 2019.
JOIN THE INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS ADVOCATES
Support The International Rights Advocates' efforts to hold Nestle, Mars, Hershey, Mondelez, Cargill, Barry Callebaut, and Olam legally accountable for their years of profiting from child slavery: https://www.internationalrightsadvocates.org/cases/cocoa
FACTS
THREE FILMS ABOUT
THE CHOCOLATE INDUSTRY
THE CHOCOLATE WAR is director Miki Mistrati's third documentary addressing the dark side of the chocolate industry. All three films are produced by Helle Faber, Made in Copenhagen. Check out the films here:
“My journey started in 2007, as a journalist and filmmaker researching and investigating the chocolate industry. I quickly learned, that this industry is full of illegal child slavery, child trafficking and violation of international laws. I also learned that nobody within the industry cared, that they were turning a blind eye to what was going on – or trying to cover up a major problem with, for example, pathetic school programs available to only a small group of children. These last images were always very present on Nestlé’s homepage, designed to calm down consumers and press.”
Miki Mistrati
About Miki Mistrati
He was born in Copenhagen in 1968. Since 1996, Miki Mistrati has directed, produced, and exec produced more than 85 films for the Danish and international market. He is behind films like The Dark Side of Chocolate, Shady Chocolate, Starbucks & Nespresso: The Truth About Your Coffee, Cadbury Exposed, Dating's Dangerous Secrets, Face to Face with the Bounty Hunters, Abused by the Police? and Inside the Real Saudi Arabia.
He has won 12 awards and has been nominated 30 times in nine countries including the Cavling Award, Victor Award, NY Award. Latest award: AIB Awards 2020. Special Mention by Rory Peck Trust 2020. Nominated by the British Journalism Awards 2019 and 2020. Nominated by Amnesty Media Award 2021, the Wincott Awards 2021, CPH:DOX F:ACT Awards 2022, Cinema for Peace 2022.
Supporting International Media Support (IMS) and ARIJ. Published author of novels and non-fiction (14 books).
Today, he produces films for the BBC, Channel 4, A&E and Sky.
About Terry Collingsworth
Terry Collingsworth is one of the leading human rights attorneys in the world. He was born and raised in a working-class home in Cleveland, Ohio. When he was young he became a worker and started operating a crane in the local copper mine and discovered how poor working conditions could truly destroy a human being. This motivated him to study law at the University of Los Angeles.
From there things progressed quickly. Collingsworth brought cases against some of the world’s biggest and most powerful companies to court: Shell, Coca Cola, Walmart, Exxon, Firestone, Chiquita, Dole and now Nestlé and Cargill.
In this case, his two opponents, Cargill and Nestlé, have hired some of the most powerful law firms in the world to represent them. Nestlé hired both Gibson Dunn and Hogan Lovells - a firm of more than 2500 attorneys with an annual revenue of 1.5 billion USD.
Educational material
Are you sure you are not indirectly supporting child labour and child slavery when eating chocolate? Often the answer would be no. The good news is that we can change it – if we want to.
When you have finished the course:
- you will have watched a documentary about child labour and child slavery in the West African cocoa production and the role of the chocolate industry,
- you will know why child labour is widely used on cocoa farms, and
- you will have played a dilemma game on how to end child labour on cocoa farms.
Partners raising awareness on child slavery in the cocoa and chocolate industry:
Reviews and articles about THE CHOCOLATE WAR:
https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-chocolate-war-cphdox-review/5169055.article
https://www.film-fest-report.com/home/cphdox-2022-the-chocolate-war-review
https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/423693/
https://businessdoceurope.com/cphdox-interview-the-chocolate-war-by-miki-mistrati/
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/the-chocolate-war-cphdox-1235210974/
https://thechocolatelife.com/thechocolatelife-live-w-miki-mistrati/
https://quota.media/mikkel-friis-holms-chocolate-war-free-speech-vs-boycotts-in-copenhagen/
https://chocolatechoice.ca/proof-bewijs/
THE CHOCOLATE WAR credits:
Director: Miki Mistrati
Producer: Helle Faber
Co-producer: Torstein Parelius, Christian Aune Falch, Ingrid Aune Falch, Jonathan Borge Lie
DOP: Henrik Bohn Ipsen, DFF
Editor: Andreas Birch Eriksen
Sound Designer: Jørgen Meyer, Audun Kvitland Røstad, Are Åberg, Krister Johnson, Geir Døhlie Gjerdsjø
Composer: Marius Christiansen
International Sales: DR Sales
Impact Producer: Mette Bjerregaard