First Taste (30 minute documentary, 2023)
Documentary (DE/GIN), directed by Sorina Gajewski, produced by Milena Krmek. Winner, World Food Forum Film Festival, United Nations, 2024. Nominated for the Doc.Talent Award, DOK.fest München, 2023. Funded by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
A group of coffee farmers in Macenta, Guinea, taste their own coffee for the first time after a lifetime of growing it. A barista in Berlin drinks hers without noticing. Mamy Dioubaté, founder of Macenta Beans and the man building West Africa's first coffee-washing station, is the link between them.
I came to this through Macenta Beans, where I'd worked on the crowdfunding campaign and brand. Sorina, Milena and I sketched out the concept and story arcs in my kitchen and we co-authored the funding application: the five-act structure, the decision to let the film run without interviews or commentary, and the case for why a thirty-minute film about one cup of coffee could carry the whole weight of a colonial supply chain. The application was successful and the film was made, largely as proposed in our initial treatment.
I got a writing credit in the final film.
