The Fair Trade Movie Blog

Way back when we started this film, nearly our whole team met with John and Ed Priddy of Priddy Brothers Entertainment at the Los Angeles premiere of their documentary 51 Birch Street. Just recently John had occasion to view the final result of The Fair Trade, and wrote a beautiful e-mail in response. Very satisfying to receive such encouragement from our peers—an excerpt:

What a beautiful work of art! Cinematically gorgeous with a compelling storyline. What I love most about The Fair Trade is the theme of how in suffering we can be guided to a place of healing, calling, and fulfillment. I like the broad appeal of fair trade with Anti-Body’s particular endeavor—how selling soap can change the lives of a few women and beyond. I, too, believe that commerce has a unique ability to solve tremendous social ills. It is not about capitalism run amok, but about good, healthy, and intelligent commerce.

Thank you for the brave effort to make this film and especially to Tamara for opening up her life to the world. Just amazing…..

John Priddy, Priddy Brothers Entertainment

To continue spreading the word about fair trade, Africa, global justice, and cool awesome skincare products, our wonderful Tamara Johnston McMahon is traveling to Chicago next week to participate in a screening of The Fair Trade movie. The screening is sponsored by the Student Trade Justice Campaign and Oxfam at Loyola University Chicago. Here are the details:

The Fair Trade movie screening
Wednesday, October 22, 2008, at 7 p.m.
Crown Center Auditorium
6525 N. Sheridan Rd., Chicago, IL 60626
followed by a Q&A with producer Tamara Johnston McMahon

As promised, we have more pictures from BendFilm Festival 2008. And I forgot to mention: the previous set of photos was courtesy Tamara, and these are from Rayne. Thanks to both of them!

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Producer Tamara Johnston McMahon and Associate Producer Rayne Roberts traveled up to BendFilm Festival this past weekend, and joined cinematographer Denise Klitsie to represent The Fair Trade movie at the festival in Bend, Oregon. We got pictures! One set today, and another set tomorrow.

Tamara said the movie was a smashing success:

It’s good to be back, but Rayne and I had a fun time and especially enjoyed the snow and cold weather! Everyone was extremely hospitable. The time was well spent and the screening went very well with a packed audience (not bad for 10 a.m. on a cold Saturday!). There was a standing ovation and a Q&A following the screening. Our very own Denise Klitsie and her friend Luanne were in attendance, as were Tom and Jane of Ashland Independent Film Festival and Laura Purkey (Matthew Diederich’s mom).

We want to thank everyone who came out to see the screening, and hope your lives were touched by it.

Photos:

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BendFilm festival begins tonight. The Fair Trade movie screens on Saturday morning, and Tamara, Rayne, and Denise will be there to support the film, as well as our wonderful friend Jamie from FilmBaby!

Got a note from Martin at Souled Out U.K., and he was thrilled at the response to the screenings of The Fair Trade Movie at Encounter 2008:

“It was a great option for us to add screenings of The Fair Trade to our programme at the convention center in Aberdeen. Thank you so so much for allowing us to show the film. You really blessed us.”

Martin J. Clarke
Encounter 2008

Thanks, Martin, and thanks to all who checked it out in Aberdeen. Remember, if you want to support our efforts to keep making films like this, run over to the website, or FilmBaby, or any online retailer that stocks the movie!

Thanks to these wonderful folks for spreading the word about The Fair Trade, on blogs and websites and such:

• Ten Thousand Villages of Austin: They have been watching and commenting on the screenings at other 10k Villages stores.
• The Pyrmont Community recommends The Fair Trade movie in their list of ways to find out more about Fair Trade and support the movement.

We appreciate the mention and links!

Check it out: Souled Out U.K. is showing The Fair Trade movie all afternoon today!

Wow. It’s exciting to finally see The Fair Trade movie getting stocked on shelves, at least in the virtual sense. We’ve seen it at Tower, Barnes and Noble, DVD Empire, even Circuit City and Best Buy! If you haven’t purchased a copy of the movie yet, now is the time. And, if you liked the movie, make sure to go back and add a review to one (or more) of these sites — that’s how others will know that you loved it!

Ship date looks to be November 18, 2008 for these new retail channels. A shout-out and thanks to FilmBaby and Ryko Distribution for making this happen!

The Fair Trade movie screened (every hour on the hour!) at the Fair Trade L.A. Festival 2008 this past weekend. Tamara was there representing The Fair Trade as well as Anti-Body, and she said the response was great:

“No one stayed for the whole running time, but the festival was not conducive to watching movies for an hour. I could tell people were intently interested”

Thanks to Fair Trade L.A. for hosting us, and thanks to everyone who stopped by. And remember, if you want to buy the movie, go to FilmBaby or Fuller Bookstore!