What will a big corporation do to protect its brand? Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten experienced this recently. His previous film BANANAS!* recounts the lawsuit that 12 Nicaraguan plantation workers brought against the fruit giant DOLE. The film was selected for competition by the L.A. Film Festival. But then Gertten gets a strange message: the festival has removed BANANAS!* from competition. A scathing article appears in the L.A. Business Journal about the film, and Gertten subsequently
receives a letter from DOLE’s attorney threatening legal action. What follows is an unparalleled thriller, with Gertten capturing the entire process on film. The film reveals precisely how a multinational will stop at nothing to get its way. As DOLE ’s PR company puts it, “It is easier to cope with a bad conscience than a bad reputation.”
Sweden Documentary — 2011 — 1hr 30min
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