Dirty White Gold

When you bag a bargain, who pays for it?

Directed by Leah Borromeo | Produced by Dartmouth Films

Dirty White Gold is a self-presented feature film probing into the soft cotton of your underwear, the pesticides used to produce that cotton and the people who perish for your pretty panties. It’s an in-depth analysis, a heart-wrenching story and a direct intervention calling for transparency, ethics and sustainability across the entire fashion supply market

The journey starts with nearly 300,000 Indian farmers who have killed themselves to escape debt. At one point, up to 26 per day. They are the price we pay for cheap cotton – trapped in a cycle of debt, brought about as a result of the industrialisation of their livelihoods. Some kill themselves by drinking the pesticides with which they farm.

At the heart of the film will be the human stories of the people who work the fields to form the threads of our moral fibre. We will ask “when you bag a bargain, who pays for it?”

Read director Leah Borromeo’s interview in The Wall Street Journal

Press

“A funny, poetic film about cotton’s dark secrets? Bring on Dirty White Gold. A movie like this can let far more of us know the political economy behind what we wear. And although knowledge is the first step to action, the brilliance of this film is that it also shows action! So it’s not only action, it leads by example. Get it made!”  Mike Bonanno, The Yes Men

Testimonial

“The WorldView money enabled us to leverage much more money for our film. It was part of a match funding package which helped take us from development to the first stage of production. No-one else could provide this sort of finance. A unique part of the documentary funding ecology. Many thanks.”  Christopher Hird, Executive Producer