''Crude'' is a 2009 American
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
directed and produced by
Joe Berlinger
Joseph Berlinger (born October 30, 1961) is an American documentary filmmaker and producer. Particularly focused on true crime documentaries, Berlinger's films and docu-series draw attention to social justice issues in the US and abroad in such ...
. It follows a two-year portion of an ongoing
class action lawsuit
A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action ...
against the
Chevron Corporation
Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California (shortened to Socal or CalSo), it is headquartered in S ...
in
Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...
.
Synopsis
The film follows the progress during 2006 and 2007 of a $27 billion legal case brought against the
Chevron Corporation
Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California (shortened to Socal or CalSo), it is headquartered in S ...
following the drilling of the
Lago Agrio oil field
The Lago Agrio oil field is an oil-rich area near the city of Nueva Loja in the province of Sucumbíos, Ecuador. It is located in the Western Oriente Basin. The site's hydrocarbon-bearing formations are the Cretaceous Napo and Hollin formation ...
, a case described by activists as an "Amazon
Chernobyl
Chernobyl ( , ; russian: Чернобыль, ) or Chornobyl ( uk, Чорнобиль, ) is a partially abandoned city in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, situated in the Vyshhorod Raion of northern Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. Chernobyl is about no ...
".
The plaintiffs of the
class action lawsuit
A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action ...
are 30,000
Ecuadorians
Ecuadorians ( es, ecuatorianos) are people identified with the South American country of Ecuador. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Ecuadorians, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collect ...
living in the Amazonian
rainforest
Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainfores ...
who claim their ancestral homeland has been polluted by the oil industry. In addition to the legal struggle, ''Crude'' shows interviews from representatives of the plaintiffs and defendants of the class action lawsuit, and explores the influence of media support such as
Vanity Fair, celebrity activism including support from musical artist
Sting
Sting may refer to:
* Stinger or sting, a structure of an animal to inject venom, or the injury produced by a stinger
* Irritating hairs or prickles of a stinging plant, or the plant itself
Fictional characters and entities
* Sting (Middle-eart ...
and his wife
Trudie Styler
Trudie Styler (born 6 January 1954) is an English actress and film producer.
Early life and family
Styler was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, the daughter of Pauline and Harry Styler, a farmer and factory worker. When Styler was two years ...
, the power of multinational corporations, the shifting power in Ecuadorian politics, and rapidly disappearing indigenous cultures are explored in the movie.
The film ends with a prediction the lawsuit will not be resolved for another decade or so unless an out of court settlement is arranged.
Interviews
* Juan Diego Perez
* Pocho Alvarez
*
Joe Berlinger
Joseph Berlinger (born October 30, 1961) is an American documentary filmmaker and producer. Particularly focused on true crime documentaries, Berlinger's films and docu-series draw attention to social justice issues in the US and abroad in such ...
(producer of ''Crude'')
* Michael Bonfiglio
*
Sting
Sting may refer to:
* Stinger or sting, a structure of an animal to inject venom, or the injury produced by a stinger
* Irritating hairs or prickles of a stinging plant, or the plant itself
Fictional characters and entities
* Sting (Middle-eart ...
(activist, artist and co-founder of Rainforest Foundation Fund)
*
Trudie Styler
Trudie Styler (born 6 January 1954) is an English actress and film producer.
Early life and family
Styler was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, the daughter of Pauline and Harry Styler, a farmer and factory worker. When Styler was two years ...
(activist, producer, and co-founder of Rainforest Foundation Fund with her husband Sting)
* Adolfo Callejas (Ecuadorian lawyer on behalf of Chevron-Texaco)
*
Steven Donziger
Steven R. Donziger (born September 14, 1961) is an American attorney known for his legal battles with Chevron, particularly '' Aguinda v. Texaco, Inc.'' and other cases in which he represented over 30,000 farmers and indigenous people who suffer ...
(American lawyer on behalf of the plaintiffs)
*
Pablo Fajardo
Pablo Fajardo Mendoza (or Pablo Fajardo) is an Ecuadorian lawyer and activist. He is the lawyer that has been leading the litigation against Chevron Corporation related to the environmental disaster he alleged was caused by the oil operations of ...
(Ecuadorian lawyer on behalf of the plaintiffs)
* Diego Larrea (Ecuadorian Lawyer on behalf of Chevron-Texaco)
*
Rafael Correa
Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado (; born 6 April 1963), known as Rafael Correa, is an Ecuadorian politician and economist who served as President of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017. The leader of the PAIS Alliance political movement from its foundation ...
(President of the Republic of Ecuador)
* Sara McMillen (Chief Environmental Scientist for Chevron)
* Ricardo Reis Veiga (Corporate counsel for Chevron Latin America)
Subpoena of footage
On May 6, 2010 federal judge
Lewis Kaplan sided with a petition submitted by Chevron and ruled that Berlinger turn over more than 600 hours of original footage created during the film's production. Kaplan held that Berlinger’s outtakes were not confidential and that Berlinger was not independent from Donziger (a lawyer of the Ecuadorians living in the Amazonian). Chevron had sought to
subpoena
A subpoena (; also subpœna, supenna or subpena) or witness summons is a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of ...
the footage as part of the ongoing lawsuit discussed in the film. Berlinger's legal team has maintained that the footage is protected by reporters' privilege, Berlinger said there's an expectation on the part of his subjects that the raw footage is not going to be released as it's a 24/7 webcam on their lives.
Chevron insists it bears no responsibility for pollution in the Amazon and, after losing the case in Ecuador, hired hundreds of lawyers from 60 firms to fight the case in more than a dozen U.S. federal courts.
The lawyer representing Chevron called the film in this context "an unapologetic work of propaganda".
Berlinger noted that the movie has received international acclaim, that he maintained complete editorial control over the film at all time, and argued that he had in fact gone to great lengths to make ''Crude'' a balanced portrayal.
Berlinger admitted that was stunned at the level of environment devastation he saw in Ecuador,
but pointed out that movie also included many arguments from Chevron’s perspective on the court case.
In the outtakes of the movie Donziger, a lawyer representing the Ecuadorians suing Chevron for environmental damages in the Amazonian rainforest, said Texaco (now Chevron) lawyers play dirty in Ecuador
and suggested ideas to also play dirty, like pressuring the court through protests of farmers. Chevron claimed the outtakes show enough misconduct by the plaintiffs to render any judgment against it illegitimate.
a lawyer for the plaintiffs also suggested airing meeting scenes could cost them the case.
A spokeswoman for the plaintiffs answered about the scene, these were however just ideas of Donziger and in some cases colleagues making jokes in brainstorming sessions. She pointed out a rally to pressure the court never took place and called the outtakes a sideshow to distract from Chevron’s contamination of the rain forest.
A scene showing the strategy session of Donziger had been cut from the DVD release, but was included the online version for
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
. The US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals narrowed the scope slightly (Berlinger had to turn over 500 hours of outtakes, rather than 600), but in 2011 upheld the lower court ruling against Berlinger.
The judge
Lewis Kaplan ruled in 2014 that the American lawyers for the plaintiffs had used fraud in obtaining the $19 billion Ecuadorian court judgment against Chevron and cited also the film outtakes as a reason for his decision. That judgment was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Kaplan also ruled that Donziger was guilty of fraud.
The decisions of the court for Chevron and against Donziger were highly controversial,
it was later also revealed that the witness for the version of Chevron was paid several hundreds thousand dollars by Chevron.
In September 2020, the
National Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is a progressive public interest association of lawyers, law students, paralegals, jailhouse lawyers, law collective members, and other activist legal workers, in the United States. The group was founded in 193 ...
and
International Association of Democratic Lawyers International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) is an international organization of left-wing and progressive jurists' associations with sections and members in 50 countries and territories. Along with facilitating contact and exchange of vi ...
filed a joint complaint against Kaplan, alleging that “statements and actions of Judge Kaplan over the last ten years show him to have taken on the role of counsel for Chevron”. According to
Amazon Watch
Amazon Watch is a nonprofit organization founded in 1996, and based in Oakland, California, it works to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. It partners with indigenous and environmental organ ...
, Kaplan had held investments in Chevron at the time of the trial.
Berlinger had to spend an estimated amount of $1.3 million on legal fees on the case about the movie and expressed concerns about being able to make documentaries about legal cases in the future.
Reception
Critical response
On
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 95% based on 65 reviews, and an average rating of 7.4/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Dynamic, tightly arranged, and deliberately provocative, Joe Berlinger's ''Crude'' is a sobering, enraging wake-up call." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
''Crude'' was reviewed in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', in ''
LA Weekly
''LA Weekly'' is a free weekly alternative newspaper in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Jay Levin, who served as president and editor until 1991. Voice Media Group sold the paper in late 2017 to Semanal Media LLC, whose paren ...
'', on ''
AlterNet
AlterNet is a left-leaning online news outlet. It was launched in 1997 by the Independent Media Institute. In 2018, the website was acquired by owners of ''Raw Story''.
Coverage
Coverage is divided into several special sections related to progre ...
'', and by
Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist thinker and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political scien ...
.
Release
''Crude'' premiered on January 18, 2009 at the
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...
and had its theatrical premiere on September 9, 2009, at the
IFC Center
IFC Center is an art house movie theater in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City. Located at 323 Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) at West 3rd Street, it was formerly the Waverly Theater, an art house movie theater. IFC Center is ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
Film festivals (partial list)
*
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...
, United States
*
San Francisco International Film Festival
The San Francisco International Film Festival (abbreviated as SFIFF), organized by the San Francisco Film Society, is held each spring for two weeks, presenting around 200 films from over 50 countries. The festival highlights current trends in in ...
, United States
*
SILVERDOCS
The AFI Docs (formerly Silverdocs) documentary film festival is an American international film festival created by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel. It is held every year in Silver Spring, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Starte ...
: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, United States
*
Sydney Film Festival
The Sydney Film Festival is an annual competitive film festival held in Sydney, Australia, usually over 12 days in June. A number of awards are given, the top one being the Sydney Film Prize.
the festival's director is Nashen Moodley.
Histo ...
, Australia
*
One World Film Festival
One World ( Czech: ''Jeden svět'') is the largest human rights film festival in the world (125,947 spectators in 2018), held annually in Prague and other 36 cities of the Czech Republic, with a selection later shown in Brussels and other countries ...
, Czech Republic
*
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (TDF) is an international documentary festival held every March in Thessaloniki, Greece. TDF, founded in 1999, features competition sections and ranks among the world's leading documentary festivals. Since 20 ...
, Greece
*
Independent Film Festival of Boston
The Independent Film Festival Boston is a not for profit film festival in Boston, Massachusetts.
History
The Independent Film Festival Boston (also known as IFFBoston or IFFB) was created in 2003 by the non-profit organization the Independent ...
, United States
*
Cleveland International Film Festival
The Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) is an annual film festival based in Cleveland, Ohio. It is the largest film festival in Ohio. It was first held in 1977, showing eight films over a period of eight weeks at the Cedar Lee Theatre. It ...
, United States
*
True/False Film Festival
True/False Film Fest is an annual documentary film festival that takes place in Columbia, Missouri. The Fest occurs on the first weekend in March (sometimes beginning in late February), with films being shown from Thursday evening to Sunday nig ...
, United States
*
Nashville Film Festival
The Nashville Film Festival (NashFilm), held annually in Nashville, Tennessee, is the oldest running film festival in the South and one of the oldest in the United States. In 2016, Nashville Film Festival received more than 6,700 submissions from ...
, United States
*
Newport Beach Film Festival
The Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF) is an annual film festival in Newport Beach, California, typically held in late April. In 2022, it was announced that the festival have permanently changed its date to be held in October, as the festival beg ...
, United States
*
Little Rock Film Festival
The Little Rock Film Festival (LRFF) is an annual film festival held in Downtown Little Rock, Arkansas each spring. Based in the historic River Market District, home to the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library, the Little Rock Film Fes ...
, United States
*
Jacksonville Film Festival
The Jacksonville Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Jacksonville, Florida. Founded in 2002, the festival screens in competition and out-of-competition American and international independent films. According to the '' Daily Record'', ...
, United States
*
Sarasota Film Festival
The Sarasota Film Festival is a film festival located in Sarasota, Florida and is held in April. Its mission is "to celebrate the art of filmmaking and the contribution of filmmakers by hosting an international film festival and developing year-lo ...
, United States
*
Lake Placid Film Festival
The Lake Placid Film Festival is an annual Film Festival held in Lake Placid, New York. The Festival, previously known as the Lake Placid Film Forum, has played host to famous film personalities such as directors Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese ...
, United States
*
Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival
The Sidewalk Film Festival is an annual film festival taking place during the last weekend in August in the Theatre District of Birmingham, Alabama, since 1999. The festival typically screens at seven venues located within downtown Birmingham, fea ...
, United States
See also
*
Amazonia for Sale
''Amazonia for Sale'' is a documentary film about the struggle of the Peruvian indigenous peoples Awajún for the preservation of their lands and the survival of their people and culture. The documentary was produced by Ore Media, the Internation ...
*
The Coconut Revolution
''The Coconut Revolution'' is a 2001 multi-award winning documentary film about the struggle of the indigenous peoples of Bougainville Island during the Bougainville Civil War. The movement is described as the "world's first successful eco-re ...
References
External links
*
*
Joe Berlingerinterview at
Sundance Channel Sundance Channel can refer to:
* Sundance TV, formerly known as Sundance Channel (United States).
* Sundance Channel (Canada)
* Sundance Channel (Netherlands)
* Sundance Channel (Europe) Sundance Channel can refer to:
* Sundance TV, formerly kno ...
''Crude''court order video report at ''
Democracy Now!
''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at ...
''
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crude
2009 films
2009 in the environment
American documentary films
Documentary films about environmental issues
Documentary films about indigenous rights
Environmental impact of the petroleum industry
2000s Spanish-language films
2009 documentary films
Documentary films about petroleum
Chevron Corporation
Environment of Ecuador
Law of Ecuador
First Run Features films
Films directed by Joe Berlinger
Films produced by Joe Berlinger
2000s English-language films
2000s American films