With the lead-up to Valentine’s Day comes the requisite flood of commercials for teddy bears and flowers, yes, but especially Whitman’s Samplers and other boxed chocolates. In fact, probably more chocolate is gifted on February 14 than on any other single day of the year. But how many happy recipients will necessarily spend much time thinking about where their chocolate came from, and whether it was produced in a fashion that ethically compensates the farmers who harvest the cacao beans used in that manufacturing? The humane and engaging new documentary Nothing Like Chocolate, fresh off a much buzzed-about Santa Barbara Film Festival presentation, shines a light on the gulf between first-world manufacturers and consumers of chocolate and the for the most part third-world growers and producers of said delights.



Director Kum-Kum Bhavnani gives voice to boutique chocolatiers who either cannot or won’t wade into this ethical pool (Gary Guittard provides an eloquent defense), and also illuminates the complicated process by which chocolates and other items achieve “fair trade” status. Still other interviewees, including former Grenada Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, speak intelligently about both central subject Mott Green (locals call him “Smilo,” the name under which Green’s company markets its chocolate powder) and the larger considerations driving him, making for an engaging movie that provokes both the brain and the taste buds. For more information about the film, click here; for more information about the Grenada Chocolate Company and Cooperative, meanwhile, click here. And for the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Nothing Like Chocolate LLC, unrated, 63 minutes)