Trudie Styler arrives in the Amazon to help support indigenous families (photo by Sebastian Posingis)
CRUDE: THE REAL PRICE OF OIL (Joe Berlinger, 2009)
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Documentarian Joe Berlinger has a way of making a strong impact with his films — which include BROTHER’S KEEPER, PARADISE LOST, and METALLICA: SOME KIND OF MONSTER — and his latest should stir up plenty of headlines as well. In CRUDE: THE REAL PRICE OF OIL, Berlinger heads to Ecuador to detail the "Amazon Chernobyl" case, centering on a 1993 class-action lawsuit brought by thirty thousand indigenous people who live in the rainforest and claim that their land and water are contaminated by years of illegal dumping by Texaco-Chevron, leading to severe illness and death for many in their community. Ecuadorian attorney Pablo Fajardo and American consulting attorney Steven Donziger go face-to-face with Chevron attorneys Diego Larrea and Adolfo Callejas, who argue that any wrongdoing was done by PetroEcuador’s takeover of the oil fields in 1992. As such high-profile people as Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa and Rainforest Foundation cofounder Trudie Styler get involved, the fight heats up, but there’s still no end in sight for the sixteen-year-old lawsuit. Berlinger does an excellent job of presenting both sides of the story, even though the bulk of the evidence continues to build for one side.