Notes from a Documentary Director: The Road to Léo by Annette Danto, assistant professor, film Women in the West African county of Burkina Faso making shea butter.     A dusty, red dirt road takes me to the village of Léo in the province of Sisilli in Burkina Faso. Traveling across the parched countryside of this West African nation, which ranks among the world’s poorest on the human development index, my three-woman documentary crew happily endures the bumpy four-hour ride from the capital, Ouagadougou, to the Ghanaian border. We are headed to Léo to produce a digital video documentary on the shea butter industry in this landlocked nation of ten million people.        As we drive across this arid sub-Saharan region, we see the shea trees growing out of the parched soil. Shea butter is a natural substance traditionally produced by women living in West African countries from the nuts of the shea tree, known as karite. For many generations, women have used the product, sometimes referred to as “women’s gold,” as a food supplement, as a hair and skin care product, and for medicinal purposes. For example, when babies are born in the villages, they are lathered with shea butter to protect their skin from the harsh rays of the sun. Woman churning pulverized shea nuts to make butter    Shea butter production is a highly labor-intensive activity. The process of extracting the butter from the shea nuts takes many hours. Groups of women sit on the ground and pound each shea nut, over and over again, with a wooden mallet. They work with strength and determination in blazing hot weather; the midday temperature, even during our two weeks here in late February, easily reaches 104 degrees. The heat becomes unbearable and the red dust fills our lungs and coats the camera and sound equipment, presenting an enormous challenge each night for the cinematographer to clean the camera and tripod. We talk among ourselves about how documentary crews working in the Sahara cope with all of the dust and sand. We are in awe at how the shea women in the village work under these harsh conditions.    Shea butter production has traditionally been the job of women. In West Africa, only women are permitted to touch the branches of the shea tree and to harvest the shea nuts; men sit on comfortable chairs under the shady branches of the tree, watching the women gather the nuts and carry them in baskets to the sheds.    In the village we shoot the entire production process—the crushing of the shea nuts, the roasting process, the mixing of the nuts with water to form a paste, the fermenting of shea butter in vats. While acknowledging the process as a slow one, the village women appear comfortable with the nontechnological systems they have developed for each stage.    Back in the capital, at the Ouagadougou Trade Fair, we tape wonderful footage of shea producers from Léo negotiating with Italian and French buyers. Through a variety of interpreters, we interview these women in their tribal language of Moore. They speak proudly of skills they have acquired in negotiating with the Europeans. Others speak about the immediate and direct economic benefits for their children and families.     bowls of shea nuts at the Ouagadougou Trade Fair. Those benefits stem from a program for local shea butter laborers and producers that is funded and implemented by the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the Canadian Center for Economic Studies and International Cooperation. The project is designed to increase women’s economic security by facilitating their access to new opportunities that globalization has created—opportunities that have often passed them by. Women are encouraged to form and manage cooperatives, which help ensure that profits are shared equitably and extend more widely to include more rural women.    By teaching women producers marketing strategies, business skills, and bargaining techniques, the project attempts to make the globalization movement more pro-poor and pro-women.    When completed, our documentary will air on CNN International and UN-TV. In addition to a fifteen-minute film on the shea production process, we are developing a three-minute public service announcement that will be used to promote the United Nations Development Fund for Women project and help to market West African shea butter products to the global community.    Globalization is an unfinished business, a work in progress that can be shaped and steered by human intervention. By encouraging and strengthening local control over the production, marketing, and distribution of shea butter, the United Nations Development Fund for Women is forging new economic opportunities for the women, children, and families of Burkina Faso. This is enabling more and more women to emerge from poverty and reap some of the benefits of globalization and the global marketplace.    As a documentary director, with a strong commitment to social issue media and media for development, my recent efforts with the shea women of Léo will, I hope, be very worthwhile.