Green Bananas (working title) is a feature-length documentary film about a popular fruit, a reviled corporation and the quest for redemption.

Chiquita Banana, formerly the United Fruit Company, spent most of the 20th century as the archetype of paternalism in the tropics. It built towns in the jungle, laid railroads through the mountains, dictated the rhythm of life to thousands of families and the laws to many governments. It wrung profit from virgin forest and inspired fierce competition through Central America and the Caribbean. Today, a handful of banana bosses--helped by environmentalists, labor activists and religious leaders--are trying to reshape the company's legacy and rethink the environmental and social impact of agribusiness.

Their efforts raise many questions: How can former antagonists find a way to work together? Can reforms in monoculture justify its dominance over small farmers? Will the race to offer the world more and cheaper fruit win out over good practices? And can a multinational corporation ever be a responsible world citizen? To answer these questions, Green Bananas travels to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Dominica and Ivory Coast and introduces characters whose lives are totally bananas.

Why this film and why now? While bananas may seem like small potatoes, what's at stake is big business. Bananas are the fourth most import crop grown worldwide and the most profitable fruit in the grocery store. They employ millions of people and are the focus of a decades-long global trade dispute. Green Bananas helps the public understand this fascinating world of agribusiness and evaluate how our decisions as consumers resonate from plantations in Central America or small farms in the Caribbean to our breakfast tables. At a time when Americans are more concerned about what we eat, how our food made and whether it hurts us and our planet, Green Bananas sheds light on today's business culture and the impact of the green movement on corporate practice. Like Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me, the documentary will show audiences a great big world in every bite they take.

© 2007 Green Bananas, LLC. Photo credits: Hope Hall for Green Bananas