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An Evening with Documentary Filmmaker
Joe Berlinger & Crude

Directed by Joe Berlinger
Produced by Joe Berlinger, Michael Bonfiglio, J.R. Deleon and Richard Stratton

About Crude

Three years in the making, this cinéma-vérité feature from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) 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. Chevron vociferously fights the claims, charging that the case is a complete fabrication, perpetrated by "environmental con men" who are seeking to line their pockets with the company's billions.

The case takes place not just in a courtroom, but in a series of field inspections at the alleged contamination sites, with the judge and attorneys for both sides trudging through the jungle to litigate. And the battleground has expanded far beyond the legal process. The cameras rolled as the conflict raged in and out of court, and the case drew attention from an array of celebrities, politicians and journalists, and landed on the cover of Vanity Fair. Some of the film's subjects sparked further controversy as they won a CNN "Hero" award and the Goldman Award, the environmental equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

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. While the environmental impact of the consumption of fossil fuels has been increasingly documented in recent years, Crude focuses on the human cost of our addiction to oil and the increasingly difficult task of holding a major corporation accountable for its past deeds.

Provided courtesy of First Run Features.
Not Rated. Running time: 104 minutes.

To learn more about the film and to view the trailer, click here.

  

About Joe Berlinger (Director/Producer)

Joe Berlinger is an award-winning filmmaker, journalist and photographer.  His films include the landmark documentaries Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. His most recent film, Crude, debuted at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and has received numerous accolades including being named on of the Top Five Documentaries of the Year by the National Board of Review and Best International Green Film at Berlin's prestigious Cinema For Peace. Berlinger has directed and produced numerous hours of television, including the Emmy-winning 10 Days that Unexpectedly Changed America and the critically-acclaimed Sundance Channel series Iconoclasts, now entering its fifth season. Berlinger is also the author of Metallica: This Monster Lives: The Inside Story of Some Kind of Monster.


Berlinger is currently directing and producing the first season of Masterclass, a new series for the Oprah Winfrey Network and is now in production on the third installment of the Paradise Lost series, slated to air on HBO in 2011. Berlinger is developing two narrative feature films which he plans to produce and direct: Education of a Felon about the life of cult prison novelist Edward Bunker; and Facing the Wind based on Julie Salamon's bestselling nonfiction book of the same name. And, most recently, Berlinger has begun working on a feature documentary exploring the life and work of horror novelist, filmmaker, and artist Clive Barker.

Director's Statement

I visited the Ecuadorean Amazon for the first time in 2005, and was shown a shocking ecological disaster. I saw and smelled the foul petrochemical sludge that for decades has been dumped into open pits or directly into the water and soil—a system designed by Texaco when the company began drilling for oil there in the late 1960's and early 1970's (in 2001, Texaco was acquired by Chevron). I talked with people who were sick and dying from cancer and other diseases—some of the 30,000 settlers and indigenous people who call themselves los afectados, "the affected ones." I also met Pablo Fajardo, the remarkable 35-year-old lawyer who was once a poor manual laborer in the oil fields. Pablo still lives in relative poverty, but today he is the lead attorney in the largest oil-related environmental lawsuit on the planet.

I left that first trip feeling sick – literally, from the noxious fumes I ingested – and figuratively, from the things I saw and stories I heard. I knew there was an important story to be told, but I quickly realized that if I was going to go through with the extraordinary effort it would take to make a film, I would have to do something different than what might be expected from this kind of environmental story. I wanted to break from the standard formula of an environmental disaster exposé, and create a unique and challenging cinematic experience that brings an audience into a world they probably have never seen before.

In making this film, I felt it was important not just to show the situation and try to point fingers at a culprit, but to pull back and tell this massive – and massively complicated – story from a wider and more nuanced viewpoint. How did this happen in the first place? What are the roles of corporate power, of government, the media, and big money in a case with the long history and potentially enormous consequences as this one? What does it take to tackle a problem of this magnitude? Is it really as bad as it seems? I knew that to do the story justice and also satisfy my own creative and journalistic impulses, I would have to go beyond simply showing the alleged environmental damage and human suffering and explore the messy, ambiguous process of getting justice in the real world.

Much of my previous work, such as Brother’s Keeper, Paradise Lost and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, has sought to break down stereotypes and preconceived notions and probe beneath the surface of people and situations. In the real world, things aren't black and white, and this is how I approached this story, as well. An indigenous Amazonian leader doesn't just show up at a Chevron shareholders' meeting and confront the CEO all by himself – he is coached by a Harvard-educated attorney. The Ecuadorean plaintiffs can't spend fifteen years in court on their own – they need a high-powered Philadelphia law firm specializing in class action lawsuits to pay for the investigations that Ecuadorean law requires – and that law firm stands to profit from any judgment. The attorneys for both the oil company and the plaintiffs compete for media attention, but the spotlight on the case gets brighter when celebrity activists Trudie Styler and Sting come on board. Yet here too I hope the film topples the usual clichés, as Trudie proves herself to be anything but a token "rent-a-celeb," delivering on a promise she makes to help ease the suffering of the people. And while some people may initially perceive the representatives from Chevron as simply being part of a "big bad oil company," they come across as real human beings who make a number of very intriguing legal and scientific claims.

Despite these ambiguities, the film never loses sight of what has true value. In the midst of the messy, murky world of this case, there are still good guys to root for, and even a clear hero in Pablo Fajardo. Cool and calm in the jungle, surrounded by press and adversarial lawyers, Pablo is unwavering in his insistence that you cannot put a price tag on human life, clean air and water or a healthy planet, regardless of who is right or wrong in the lawsuit. One of the themes of the film is that in a world in which the Exxon Valdez judgment took nearly two decades to appeal, it will be generations before this case is fully resolved. So while the lawyers argue and various parties jockey for position with the media, the indigenous people who have lived in harmony with nature on these lands for millennia continue to suffer. That's why the last scene of the film shows a group of Cofán Indians heading down river to an uncertain future. At the end of the journey of the film, Crude comes back to where it started, bearing witness to the lives of these people and the once-rich land they live on, leaving us to think about why this story matters to us all.

-- Joe Berlinger

About the ongoing legal battle over the film (August 12th, 2010)

The makers of the feature documentary Crude, which chronicles the inside story of the largest and most controversial environmental lawsuit on the planet--a 17-year, $27 billion struggle between 30,000 Ecuadorean rainforest dwellers and Chevron--are currently embroiled in a legal battle with Chevron, who has subpoenaed the Crude filmmakers and the nearly 600 hours of raw footage accumulated during the production. Crude's Director, Joe Berlinger, and his attorneys have argued in court that the footage is protected by the journalist's privilege, and being forced to hand it over to any third party (either Chevron, the plaintiffs' lawyers, or anyone else) is a violation of First Amendment rights. On May 6th, a US District Court ruled in Chevron's favor, but in an effort to protect the footage, his sources, and his process, Berlinger immediately appealed, and on June 8th, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that Berlinger would be awarded a full hearing in mid-July. That July 14th hearing resulted in a "limited victory", ordering Berlinger to turn over the bulk--but not all--of the footage that was deemed likely relevant for Chevron's case in Ecuador. Berlinger's battle with Chevron presses on, as after complying with the court's order, the corporation remains unsatisfied by Berlinger's footage and recently filed with a new subpoena for additional documents including emails between the filmmaker and his subjects and a request to depose the Crude filmmaking team to find out what happened when the cameras were off, which Berlinger's team considers privileged information. Suffice it to say, this case rapidly spiraled into an historic battle for the freedom of the press, the protection of the journalist, and the foundation of documentary film.

Parking

The USC School of Cinematic Arts is located at 900 W. 34th St., Los Angeles, CA 90007. Parking passes may be purchased for $8.00 at USC Entrance Gate #5, located at the intersection of W. Jefferson Blvd. & McClintock Avenue. We recommend parking in outdoor Lot M or V, or Parking Structure D, at the far end of 34th Street. Please note that Parking Structure D cannot accommodate tall vehicles such as SUVs. Metered street parking is also available along Jefferson Blvd.

About The USC Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics

The Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics, USC College, issues a Grand Challenge to every new student who comes to USC--to engage with, understand, and internalize the timeless values at the core of our humanity. The Institute collaborates with departments, professional schools, and programs across the university to bring students and faculty together with authors and artists, philosophers and practioners, and the ethical voices of our time.

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