Stumptown "Wax & Gold"

In Abyssian poetry, the “wax” is the obvious meaning, while the “gold” is the hidden meaning.

Wax & Gold opens a secret passageway to Ethiopia, one of Africa’s oldest and most storied nations. Farm League partnered with Stumptown Coffee Roasters to create an immersive sensory experience: a non-fiction film in which the viewer is enveloped in rhythm, color, and sound. Instead of observing from the outside, we are invited to witness the soul of this rich culture from the inside.

“I knew we couldn’t really translate the feeling of the place with a traditional documentary style. I wanted to throw the rules out the window.”  – Director Britton Caillouette.

With a minimal brief and no ground rules, our creative team devoted four months to ideation, research, development and pre-production. What emerged was an alternative approach to a documentary film, guided by a concept for a film screening experience and multi-media installation featuring artistic loops and long drawn out one-take scenes. This artistic vision of the end result was the guiding light for the entire project and laid the groundwork for a completely unique approach. The exhibition was realized in Los Angeles at Mack Sennett Studios.

What emerged from the nearly two week journey through the entire country was a thread tying together three principal characters: the 76-year-old musician Mulatu Astatke, whose hypnotic music is the foundation for the genre of Ethio- jazz; the 31-year-old producer Endeguena Mulu, whose electronic soundscapes sample traditional Ethiopian sounds to celebrate the past while pushing the culture forward; and Haile Gebre, the owner/operator of two family-run farms in Southern Ethiopia that provide coffee beans for Stumptown’s Mordecofe blend.

Guided by mystery and imagination, Caillouette’s film allows us to see overlooked but essential truths. By peeling back the layers of this ancient culture, Wax & Gold unlocks a path to the future.