Indigena Café and Chocolate

 

- A short documentary film about Gianni Simei who runs a eco-social café in the jungle of Cabuya in Costa Rica 

 

Gianni moved out of his hometown Anzio in Italy more than 23 years ago and spent his last 8 years building an ecological, ethical and social project. "Indigena Café & Chocolate" is an eco-conscious café and small batch chocolate making shop near the Cabo Blanco Nature Reserve in Cabuya, Costa Rica. The Café was created with the vital idea of sustaining and supporting the traditions, arts, and languages of the Indigenous communities of Costa Rica, as well as the country’s vibrant ecological systems. 

 

With a way beyond “fair-trade” approach Gianni purchases cacao beans for his chocolate from various Indigenous communities, including „Ngäbe“, a Costa Rican Indigenous community located near the border of Panama. By paying them a fair price for the beans and selling their handcrafted art in the café, as well as organizing non-profit events for sharing their knowledge and give the customers insights into their traditions and processes, “Indigena Café and Chocolate“ is providing a stable source of income for Indigenous communities.

 

Because of his ecological and "close to nature"-mindset, the Café and the surrounding structures on the property have all been built using natural building methods and sustainable materials. Wattle and daub technique, lime plastering, terra cotta, cob and clay walls, locally harvested bamboo, adobe bricks, sustainably harvested local wood, and thatched roofing have all been implemented throughout the buildings. Other permaculture features on the property include biodigestors, natural grey water filtration systems, an ecological pond, biodiverse gardens and a Hummingbird Farm. Both beautiful and ecological, the property gracefully intertwines artistic creativity with sustainable living.
 

 

While we get to know the basic process of how to make small batch craft chocolate and what the big difference to industrial chocolate is, we immerse into Gianni´s project and connection to the indigenous community. We get to know the importance of their knowledge and get inspired to live a more connected and sustainable lifestyle. In an industrialised western world with mainly big scale production, we lost the feeling and connection to what goes into making things like chocolate. By supporting big companies which don´t hesitate to exploit people and destroy nature, we have to rethink how we want to live in the future and who to support. Gianni shows and alternative and it should inspire us to support localism and small-scale productions which value their surroundings, community and after all make this amazing product cacao to a tasty chocolate without altering its taste and health beneficial properties.

While I was looking for a sustainable project that protects wildlife in Costa Rica, I stumbled into Gianni and his Café. The second I got here, I felt like this is something amazing. Gianni´s holistic approach about living with and from nature and supporting the Indigenous community caught my attention. He became the perfect Human|Nature candidate with his transition from living in a City in Italy and having everything at his fingertips to deticating his life to living with nature and dedicating his life to creating an eco-social project from scratch and struggling his way into a happy minimalistic lifestyle. His engaging motivation to change the world for the better was my decisions to show his project to the world. With that he´s setting a positive example and inspires us to rethink our values as materialistic and rich society. 

 

Imagine we would live in a world of more small-scale production businesses who take care of their communities, are passionate about what they are doing, act responsible with natural resources and create a unique and special product for us consumers. Definitely we need to start by also educating the consumers and let them know what their money can change and how things are connected. This film about small scale production of chocolate as an example for so many other divisions of consumption that will make us reconsider what the future could look like, when it comes to the value of a product and also the social and natural aspects of a business. The film inspires to rethink where our money goes and makes us consider a different path compared to a large scale commercial approach that is damaging nature, making less quality products and in the end also exploits people themselves, that works in that production chain. By supporting this film you´ll be helping us spread awareness and hopefully over time a change in values to help more people decide to live their passion and create businesses with a good intention and cause. We know that every concious mind matters and every little change makes a difference. If we raise money for this film, we can do more of them and spread more awareness in the world and hopefully create a change to a more sustainable future. Your contribution will make a big difference, so if you're as passionate about this topic as we are, please consider donating.
 
The film is considered the first of a series of films so stay tuned and follow the instagram channel: https://www.instagram.com/humannature.stories/

If we reach more than €10.000, what will cover the production cost, every euro more will go to the Indigena Café project and we will do another episode with the Indigenous community "Ngäbe" itselft and how chocolate is harvested and what traditions they follow.

Production details
The film was shot in sping 2022 by myself and some helping hands in Cabuya in Costa Rica.

Time frames
The film is already finished. It is already released as free-to-view on YouTube.

Budget
The budget with travelling, time spent, the help and equipment was roughly around €10.000