Crude

(USA, 2009, 104 mins, DigiBeta)

Canadian Premiere

EXEC PRODS: Liesl Copland, Jon Kamen, Ted Sarandos, Joe Berlinger,
PRODS: Joe Berlinger, Michael Bonfiglio, J.R. DeLeon, Richard Stratton
CAM: Juan Diego Pérez, Pocho Alvarez, Joe Berlinger, Michael Bonfiglio
ED: Alyse Ardell Spiegel
MUS: Wendy Blackstone

Already dubbed "the film that Chevron doesn't want you to see," Crude joins the ranks of other equally strong films that explore the terrible human cost of the oil business. With precision and clarity, director Joe Berlinger (Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) systematically unpacks the story behind one of the largest and most controversial environmental lawsuits on the planet. The "Amazon Chernobyl" is the name given to an area of the jungle in Ecuador that was the site of one of the most devastating cases of corporate malfeasance in human history. When Chevron left after 30 years of oil exploration, what remained was cancer, toxic sludge, birth defects and a devastated indigenous population. Over three decades, the American oil corporation had effectively masterminded a form of ecocide, turning one of the most biodiverse places on the planet into a dead zone. In a precedent setting case, 30,000 indigenous people took Chevron to court, asking for reparations. The end result of this case may have profound results for other countries around the world (including Canada) with indigenous populations launching legal challenges of their own.

"Rarely have such conflicts been examined with the depth and power of Joe Berlinger’s documentary Crude. These real characters and events play out on the screen like a sprawling legal thriller."--The New York Times

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