Barista Magazine is your home for the worldwide community of coffee and the people who make it.
Issue link: http://baristamagazine.epubxp.com/i/178542
F OAM: NEWS PHOTO BY BRANDON LOPER COFFEE ON THE BIG (AND LITTLE) SCREEN COFFEE-INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS are the biggest critics of coffee-based films, in part because we're the defiant type: Who are you to tell me about coffee, Mr. Filmmaker? There's a reason for that: lots of other directors who've made coffee films, short and long, have gotten it all wrong. They've misrepresented coffee people, but more criminally, they've misrepresented coffee itself. Therefore, when films come around that seem to be getting it right, we sit up and take notice. Here are two projects we're especially excited about. A FILM ABOUT COFFEE Directed by Brandon Loper www.afilmaboutcoffee.com BRANDON LOPER IS A FILMMAKER FIRST and coffee lover second, which is to say that he's made his life about film more than coffee. Well, up until two years ago; that was when he got serious about the project he'd been dreaming of doing for years: a film about coffee. And what do you know—it's called A Film about Coffee. Brandon moved from Alabama to San Francisco in 2006, which was right around the time he was weaning himself off of hazelnut creamer in his coffee—but still a few years before his life-changing coffee experience. "I had an extremely delicious cup of coffee at the Blue Bottle in Mint Plaza [San Francisco] on April 14, 2009," he recalls. "It was a coffee called Misty Valley from Ethiopia." Back then, Brandon was writing a super-casual coffee and wine blog (www.beansandgrapes.blogspot.com), through which he was able to express his creative musings and inquiries about these complex beverages. When he fell out of habit with the blog, he also lost his outlet for coffee exploration. "Without the blog, I wasn't able to get these coffee moments off of my chest, so I held them in for a few years until the timing was right," Brandon says. That moment came when he left his advertising-agency job and took the leap to being a freelance commercial director. When his short, Unwieldy Beast, enjoyed some success on the film-festival circuit, he accepted a position as a director with the production company, Avocados and Coconuts, and that was when he formally began work on A Film about Coffee. Two years later, as he and his team rush to complete post production on the film in time to enter it for consideration in the Sundance Film Festival, Brandon took the time for an interview about what a lot of people think is going to be the best film about coffee yet. Sarah Allen: Who is the audience for this film? Brandon Loper: This film is for coffee people. Some people like to define that more than others, but what I've realized is that no matter the quality of your cup, people that love coffee love it. Honestly, my audience has shifted several times during the last two years I've been working on the film, but we've landed at a place that I'm really excited about sharing and educating the masses without using too much jargon. SA: You went to Rwanda with Darrin Daniel, Stumptown Coffee's green buyer. Does the film cover the whole seed-to-cup story? BL: Yeah, we had a blast in Rwanda. We've also been to Honduras, Tokyo, San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz, Portland, Seattle, Los 18 barista magazine Eiichi Kunitomo of Omotesando-Koffee is interviewed in A Film about Coffee. Director Brandon Loper and his team traveled around the world gathering footage and doing research on specialty coffee in the 21st century. Loper hopes the film will be released a er positive reception at film festivals this season. Angeles, Boston, New York. Coffee is everywhere, so we had to be selective and pick locations where we could tell our story without feeling like we had to travel the entire globe. Yeah, we filmed a super sweet guy in Honduras named Sebastian Benitiz planting coffee in October of last year, and spent time in Rwanda at Huye Mountain Coffee Roasters during this year's harvest, and followed a fully washed coffee being processed and loaded into a container. You'll hopefully see a new take on the process, and a few that you haven't seen on film before. SA: You're headed into this year's film festival circuit, so when can we see it? BL: Sundance is the week of January 18, so it depends quite a bit on that. Depending on the distribution deal for the film, we're planning on coordinating with local coffee companies in different cities for the film screenings in theaters. You're definitely going to want a cappuccino after watching this film, and there are some cool opportunities that come with making a film about coffee, and I want to bring in the taste experience as much as possible while watching. SA: Anything else we should know? BL: I think one thing that I've had some people comment on and speculate is that the film is sponsored by certain coffee companies. The places we've chosen to film are 100-percent chosen based on story and availability, and no one has paid us or given us anything to include them in the film. (I might sell George Howell's autograph for some cash later down the road, but other than that, nothing.) Coffee people are really great and I hope that any stereotype around specialty coffee—whether it's deserved or not—starts to slip away from people's assumptions.