BLOOD, SWEAT AND SUGAR

A documentary by MATHILDE DAMOISEL

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Sugar built the modern world — and left a trail of devastation in its wake. From Brazil and the Caribbean to La Réunion, Europe, and the United States, its production has ravaged environments, uprooted populations, and fueled centuries of brutal slave labor.

 

For over five hundred years, sugar has been the engine of a system that thrives on exploitation. From the transatlantic slave trade to today’s hidden forms of slavery, all propped up by lies designed

to protect the empire.

 

Now, as the bitter legacy of "white gold" continues to shape lives and landscapes, we travel across these scarred territories to uncover a history we all inherited. In places once sacrificed to sugar’s relentless monoculture, a new battle is underway: to defend workers, to heal the planet,

and to ask — can a society built on sugar ever break free?