Documentary: Big Banana

submitted by Equal Exchange

The Big Banana, a new documentary by Franck Bieleu, sheds light on the hidden political consequences of the transnational fruit trade. Bieleu spent two years filming residents in the remote countryside of Cameroon and in St. Louis and London. The Big Banana outlines land grabbing tactics by company Plantation du Haut Penja (PHP) and the ensuing devastation for communities: poverty, pollution, and sickness from pesticides.

Consistent with a broad trend of oppression of the media in Cameroon, the April screening of The Big Banana was illegally closed down. The authorities also shut down a human rights festival and arrested the organizer, another filmmaker. With the presidential elections of Cameroon scheduled for October, Big Banana has the potential to education people about the abuse of farmers, despite the Cameroonian government's attempts to keep it from the public.

The Big Banana website

Trailer for The Big Banana