Director of Crude Points Out Lies

Interesting letter to the editor in today's Washington Times. Apparently filmmaker Joe Berlinger wasn't thrilled with Chevron's misinformation about the production of the documentary. Read on:

In his article about the ongoing legal battle against Chevron Corp. in the Ecuadorean Amazon ("Chevron urges U.S. to revoke Ecuador trade," Nation, Thursday), Tom LoBianco mentions that Chevron "has been bombarded with negative stories surrounding the lawsuit and is the target of a new documentary produced in part by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit." I assume that the documentary Mr. LoBianco refers to is my film "Crude," which premiered to great critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival last month. Contrary to your article, "Crude" was in no way produced by the plaintiffs or anyone affiliated with either side of the lawsuit. The film is a wholly independent production and was made with the cooperation of representatives of both the plaintiffs and Chevron, including Kent Robertson, the Chevron spokesperson quoted in Mr. LoBianco's article. In fact, I invited Kent Robertson to participate in the film's premiere in Park City, Utah - which was attended by the festival's founder, Robert Redford - but Mr. Robertson declined my invitation.

Making "Crude" was an intense, often grueling three-year process, and we worked extremely hard to ensure that the film presents an accurate portrayal of this highly controversial and complicated case. Following the screenings at Sundance, the film was widely praised by critics and journalists not only for its artistic merits, but also for its editorial balance and fairness to all sides of the lawsuit. For example, James Nelson of Agence France-Presse wrote, "Berlinger clearly knows about balance in covering an important issue." David Germain of Associated Press calls the film "a fairly balanced portrait of the case, with Chevron's side well represented."

To my knowledge, Mr. LoBianco has not yet seen the film, so his characterization of the film as a partisan attack on Chevron is troubling and makes me wonder where his information is coming from. Unlike my film, the writer of your article did not seem to think it was important to either see the film or to research the false claim of the film's partiality.

JOE BERLINGER

Director/producer, "Crude"

Hmmm. Looks like the Washington Times has egg on their face on this one. I bet they're not super thrilled with the Chevron PR guys right about now - looks like they trusted what this "Kent Robertson" told them about the production of the film and then they got burned.
I guess that's one newspaper that won't be rushing to do Chevron any favors anytime soon.

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Good comment on the Washington Times Story

Oh yeah, also – I saw this comment on today's Washington Times story about Chevron in Ecuador. Thought it did a good job laying out the factual problems with the story.

Take a look:

The article clearly shows how weak Chevron has become in Washington. Even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce seems to be down about the company's prospects. That said, there is inaccurate information that needs to be clarified:

*The article reports that Chevron says the legal case was moved from U.S. court (where it was filed in 1993) to Ecuador at the request of the plaintiffs. This is incorrect. The case was moved to Ecuador at Chevron's request after the company submitted ten sworn affidavits from experts claiming the courts in Ecuador were fair. Aguinda v. Texaco, Inc., 142 F.Supp.2d 534 (S.D.N.Y.2001). Once the evidence started to show Chevron's culpability, the company began to claim the Ecuador courts it had previously praised as fair were suddenly unfair.

*The article indicates that the plaintiffs "produced" a documentary film (called Crude, by Emmy award-winning director Joe Berlinger). The plaintiffs had nothing to do with the production of the film, which was made independently.

*The article indicates that lawsuit was filed by only 50 Ecuadorean residents. These individuals, however, represent a class of 30,000 Ecuadorean residents. The damages are almost entirely for environmental clean-up of what many experts consider the worst oil-related contamination on earth – one that resulted from the dumping of 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the rainforest.

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