Crude. The Real Price of Oil
dir. Joe Berlinger, USA, 2009, 105 mins
Screening times
May 12 19:00, Kinoteka 3
May 13 19:30, Kinoteka 3
< >

Synopsis

The film is the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial environmental lawsuits on the planet. The inside story of the infamous “Amazon Chernobyl” case, Crude is a real-life high stakes legal drama, set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film subverts the conventions of advocacy filmmaking, exploring a complicated situation from all angles while bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus.

The landmark case takes place in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador, pitting 30,000 indigenous and colonial rainforest dwellers against the U.S. oil giant Chevron. The plaintiffs claim that Texaco – which merged with Chevron in 2001 – spent three decades systematically contaminating one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, poisoning the water, air and land. The plaintiffs allege that the pollution has created a “death zone” in an area the size of the Rhode Island, resulting in increased rates of cancer, leukemia, birth defects, and a multiplicity of other health ailments. They further allege that the oil operations in the region contributed to the destruction of indigenous peoples and irrevocably impacted their traditional way of life.

Shooting in dozens of locations on three continents and in multiple languages, Berlinger and his crew gained extraordinary access to players on all sides of the legal fight and beyond, capturing the drama as it unfolded while the case grew from a little-known legal story to an international cause célèbre. Crude is a ground-level view of one of the most extraordinary legal dramas of our time, one that has the potential of forever changing the way international business is conducted.

Wybrane nagrody i festiwale /Selected festivals and awards: 2010- FF Boston – Nagroda Jury/Boston FF Jury Award, 2010- FF Yale, Nagroda Jury/Yale FF, Jury Award, 2010 - FF Saloniki, Nagroda World Wildlife Fund/ Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, World Wildlife Fund Award, 2010 - MFF Sundance, 2010 – FF Sun Francisko/San Francisco FF.

Makers

Zdjęcia /Cinematography by: Mike Bonfiglio, Kelly Merryman, J.R. Deleon, Joe Berlinger
Produkcja /Production: Mike Bonfiglio, Juan Diego Perez, Joe Berlinger, Pocho Alvarez

Ratings log in to rate this film

Speak your mind!