FULLY BOOKED: Screening – Cocaine Unwrapped

Cocaine Unwrapped takes on the global economy and human toll of the ‘war’ on cocaine. From the farmers in Bolivia who grow coca leaves as their livelihood to Bolivian single mothers who are drug mules out of crippling poverty to the violence of the Mexican trafficking trade where thousands die every year, the film explores the international network of violence, imprisonment, poverty, and addiction that the drug causes in it’s wake. The film even documents the effects on the consumers, from gang dealers in Baltimore who face longer imprisonment sentences than violent offenders to users in London who are apathetic, or unaware, as to how cocaine reached them.

Painting a multi-faced portrait of the role of cocaine in a society that attempts to define the ‘war on drugs’ in absolutes, director Rachel Seifert not only accounts for the environmental and human costs of the drug in South America and beyond, but the seemingly illogical and misunderstood process of incarceration for dealing it.  These tragedies make up a global network of miscommunication, violence, and cyclical poverty that seems fed on both the demand for, and illegality of, cocaine. Cocaine Unwrapped takes an un-biased view of one of the world’s largest drugs and dangerous commodities.

Directed by Rachel Seifert
80 mins
2011