The Fair Trade Movie Blog

The Fair Trade screens this weekend at Lowell Film Festival. See where we are on the Festival Schedule, or see the complete list of films.

See you there!

Exciting news for The Fair Trade movie!

FIRST: Congratulations to Anti-Body, the company profiled in the movie. They are now selling through Whole Foods Market, both here in the Southern California area as well as Whole Foods’ Southern and Mid-West regions. See the announcement on their blog and go buy some of this wonderful product while supporting producers in Africa!

SECOND: Wow! You people asked over and over where you could get the wonderful song “Wayfaring Stranger” that Rachel Diggs sang in the movie. So, we relented. Thanks to the generosity of the artists (thanks Rachel and Buddy Zapata!) we are offering the recording of “Wayfaring Stranger” from the movie as a free download, at http://www.thefairtrademovie.com/media-free-mp3.html — so now you can download it to your iPod.

THIRD (and final): The Fair Trade continues to make its presence known worldwide. The movie is now available for rental from Netflix. If you are a member of Netflix, please rate The Fair Trade — it helps with attracting new rentals and sales. Next, we will be in Massachusetts April 3-5 for the 2009 Lowell Film Festival, where The Fair Trade is a featured film [ http://www.lowellfilms.org/ ]. And, on May 16, the movie will be featured as part of Fair Trade Fortnight 2009 in New South Wales Australia [ http://www.fairtrade.com.au/ftf09 ].

Thank you all for your continued support. More than making a movie, the filmmakers wanted to invite us all into a discussion about what constitutes a “meaningful life” and how does fair trade figure into that equation. We love the conversations that we have had with many of you after the screenings, and look forward to more lives changed as people watch Tamara’s journey in The Fair Trade.

Peace.

Lauralee Farrer was part of a Q&A session after The Fair Trade and several other films screened on the Fuller Theological Seminary campus. Here’s what she had to say:

Three short films screened ahead of The Fair Trade, all good work by talented filmmakers—it was a privilege to be among them. There were about 100 people there, and the Q&A session had to be cut short because it would have gone on all night. People stood around and talked after that for another hour or so until kicked out.

Special thanks to my good friend Craig Detweiler and the Brehm Center for hosting this wonderful event; I heard Craig was an awesome moderator.

From Ten Thousand Villages in Boise, Idaho:

We have received the film and have been showing it in the store. It has really impacted some of our customers, staff and volunteers very positively. Thank you for allowing us to get the word out.

Anna

We’re glad that you are enjoying it! Please make sure to tell customers that they can buy the DVD online to share with their friends. And thanks for letting us know — the stories of lives being changed by The Fair Trade are what gives us the most satisfaction of making this movie.

Fuller Makes Movies: Independent Film Night
Friday, January 16th at 7:00 p.m.
Travis Auditorium
180 N. Oakland Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91101

The Fair Trade is part of an evening of screening films made by people at Fuller Theological Seminary. There will be 3 shorts screened before our film and then a Q&A panel afterward, moderated by author, screenwriter and Fuller professor Craig Detweiler.

The shorts are L.A. Actors, Spin, and Weathered.

The film Weathered is a short made by our friends Matt Barber and Matt Webb, and is co-starring our friend and colleague Tony Hale.

This will be an awesome evening! Free to all! Travis Auditorium is a great small venue. Bring your friends.

Thanks to everyone who came to the Conscientious Projector screening of The Fair Trade movie. Tamara said the Q&A afterwards was lively, with lots of great questions.

We’ll keep you posted on upcoming events for the movie. And remember, the DVD is available for purchase, and it makes a great Christmas present!

The Fair Trade movie will be screening as part of the Armory’s Conscientious Projector series. Refreshments!

Details:
When: Thursday, December 11
What Time: 7 p.m.
Where: The Armory Center for the Arts
145 N Raymond Ave
Pasadena, CA 91103

We also saw a really nice write-up (and review of several Anti-Body products) on the Victoria-E blog. Thanks for the mention!

We love FilmBaby, and we love Amazon.com:

Only 3 left in stock–order soon (more on the way).

Must mean that people are purchasing the film. Exciting.

The Fair Trade movie director Lauralee Farrer received an e-mail from someone in India today:

I am writing to you from Bangalore, India. I was in NY a couple of days ago and picked up a copy of The Fair Trade while browsing at this little offbeat movie store called Kim’s Video. I saw it last night and i have no words—touching and inspiring is the least I can say for the want of words.

I have always been absorbed by fair trade … it has been my great wish and desire to engage with this or sometime now and i really did not know where to begin till last night.

Thanks! We love hearing stories of how the movie is changing people’s lives…

Many of our readers do not realize that The Fair Trade was birthed by eleven people, under the inspired direction of Lauralee Farrer. One thing that Lauralee mentioned in her comments after the premiere was that the story was not only Tamara’s, but all of ours. Every single person in the 11-person team has dealt with crippling grief or loss over the last several years, and we all put that into what is seen on the screen. It makes Tamara’s story all the more powerful, because we were experiencing it with her, and, hopefully, making the same journey to hope that she did.

A tangible example of that “journey to hope” can be found in the new venture of Associate Producer Tricia Harding. She lost her mother and husband to cancer shortly before joining our production team. Now, Tricia has launched a business that serves those who are going through the trauma of cancer, as well as serving family members by giving them a convenient place to purchase hard-to-find specialty products for cancer patients. Tricia says:

Early on in my husband’s illness, the doctor had given us a list of four or five things we should have before beginning treatment. I took our six-month-old son, Iain, on what I thought would be a simple shopping trip. We drove to six different locations and covered over 200 miles before I had found everything. By the time we got home, my son was screaming, my husband was anxious, and I was overwhelmed. That was the first time I thought, Surely, there is a better way.

So she built a new business called The Pampered Patient from the ground up. Not only does it sell hard-to-find products, but Tricia is making the site a “clearinghouse” for resources, blogs, and other websites that will be of help to patients and families.

Congratulations on the store launch, Tricia. And make sure to go visit her store, to see the kind of world-changing feats that are possible when you regain hope like Tamara did in the movie.