Latijns-Amerika magazine.
 
DebatDocumentaire

Big Boys Gone Bananas

  • datum:23/09
  • tijd:20:30
  • locatie:OT301
  • adres:Overtoom 301, Amsterdam
  • kosten:€4

Movies that matter: This documentary reveals precisely how a multinational will stop at nothing to get its way.

What is a big corporation capable of in order to protect its brand? Fredrik Gertten’s experienced this recently. His previous film BANANAS!* (2009) recounts the lawsuit that 12 Nicaraguan plantation workers brought against the fruit giant Dole Food for using a banned pesticide that causes illness and infertility.

The film was selected for competition by the LA Film Festival. But then Gertten gets a strange message: the festival removes BANANAS!* from competition. Then a scathing article appears in the Los Angeles Business Journal about the film, and Gertten subsequently receives a letter from Dole’s attorney threatening him with legal action. What follows is an unparalleled thriller that has Gertten capturing the entire process – from DOLE attacking the producers with a defamation lawsuit, bullying scaretactics, to media-control and PR-spin.