An Amazonian community's fifteen-year battle with Chevron is entering dangerous waters with the Chevron request for all of the 600 hours of unused footage from the filming of "Crude: The Real Price of Oil".
The movie documented the environmental disaster left behind by Chevron-Texaco in an indigenous community of Ecuador, and the battle by Ecuadorian attorney Pablo Fajardo and others to force the company to clean up its mess and make reparations to the community.
The film was released in November to critical acclaim and general outrage. I wrote about it at the time in a blog entry called "Crude: The Movie Chevron Doesn't Want You to See."
Now Chevron is appealing a court order to pay the community millions of dollars in reparations, and it wants to see whether director Joe Berlinger's raw footage contains any material that could bolster its defense. Now the company has asked a federal judge in New York to force Berlinger to hand over his footage.
"Documentary filmmakers play an essential role in exposing social injustice," said Berlinger in a press release I received yesterday alerting me to the case. "As with traditional journalists, their sources must be protected or we risk the demise of this kind of comprehensive investigative reporting."
As a journalist, this request sent a chill up my spine. One of the things we count on as reporters is the ability to protect our sources from danger or harassment that may come to them as a result of sharing information with us. Without the ability to promise confidentiality, there's a "chilling effect" that occurs, and sources are less willing to share information.
"Unused film footage and other editorial materials from Crude are protected by the journalist's
privilege under federal law and the First Amendment," said Maura Wogan of Frankfurt Kurnit, the
lawyers for Mr. Berlinger and his production company. "We will vigorously oppose Chevron's
attempt to get to these materials."
Let's hope they are successful. Meanwhile, I'm going to take full advantage of the opportunity to plug "Crude, The Movie," which is now available on DVD from First Run Features and Netflix. If you haven't seen it yet, put it on your must-see list. You won't regret it.
Tracy L. Barnett, www.tracybarnettonline.com, is a multimedia travel writer and the founder of The Esperanza Project. She is currently traveling through Latin America profiling environmental leaders throughout the continent.
Follow Tracy L. Barnett on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thirstyboots07
I have dealt with oil people firsthand in Ecuador; they have been mostly liars and racists (although I have not met them all, I am sure). There are the bribes (we will build your community a soccer field and provide jerseys); there are the cheats (we will go to people's homes who don't speak Spanish, and make them sign Spanish documents giving over their land for oil exploration); there are the liars, who tell people one thing, and then at dinner, whe they think nobody is listening, will disclose their racist ideologies about how the "indians" are holding back the progress of the country, for living there, and wouldn't it be better of they all just went away?
There are so many dirty tricks that these people have used, that you would never even believe, perhaps, were you not to see it. but, they are ruthless and shameless, too. "Crude" underscores this, but is CONSERVATIVE, in what it actually documents, if you can believe that. That is just the tip of the exploitative iceberg.
That said, please try and do a little research before writing on this topic. The environmental disaster did not just affect "an indigenous community" but a whole group of them, including Cofán, Secoya, Kichwa, Huaorani, and Siona peoples, along with colonists. Chevron is not being sued for millions of dollars but billions. They have already spent millions of dollars on this case. You could have learned this from reading just one article on the case and you should know it already if you've seen "Crude."