WHERE’S MY GOAT and JAVA JIVE on CBC

CBC has two great programs on Christmas and Boxing Day in case you need a break from the family.

WHERE’S MY GOAT by Christopher Richardson Saturday, Dec. 25 at 10pm PST

Filmmaker Christopher Richardson buys goats for third world families as thank-you gifts for his commercial clients. It’s a fresh approach to promotional giveaways, but as the list of gifted goats grows, some clients question the existence of their goat and whether ethical gifts have the impact Christopher hopes. So Christopher decides to travel to Zambia to track down a client’s goat and discover for himself if he is being innovative or naïve. Are ethical gifts the positive developing world life-changers they are advertised to be?

Along the way he encounters both supporters and detractors of the ethical gift concept. But one question is paramount to him: “where’s my goat?” Using humor, animation and a sincere desire to access whether his good faith gesture is truly making a difference, this filmmaker’s search for “his” goat is a provocative, outside-the-box look at charity, western views of it and the impact a specific initiative might have.

Ultimately, Christopher’s quest for his goat drives the arc of the film’s argument: that a branded pen, a branded mug, a branded t-shirt is actually a missed opportunity to not only make a sale…but to make a difference. As fellow inhabitants of this planet, shouldn’t we work to find ways to leverage what we do here in the West in ways that benefit others in the developing world? Our landfills here are full of disposable trinkets that could have been opportunities to change a life over there… www.wheresmygoat.ca

JAVA JIVE by David Ozier

Stimulant. Ritual Big Business. We consume 400 billion cups of coffee a year, and it’s hard to imagine the planet waking up without it. Coffee, the most important commodity on world markets after oil, has given birth to a unique café culture, fuelled by the powerful kick of the world’s number one psychoactive drug, caffeine. Java Jive serves up a tasty take on the surprisingly complex world of coffee, charting the cherished bean from plantations in Central America, to the manic trading floor of the New York Coffee Exchange and into the cafés of North America. In both the old-fashioned coffee house and the newer corporate chains and franchises, we meet passionate coffee drinker as they enjoy the sensual pleasures of their daily fix.

Java Jive at the NFB

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