Event

Q&A with Director Joe Berlinger on his latest documentary, CRUDE

Three years in the making, this cinéma-vérité feature from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (BROTHER'S KEEPER, PARADISE LOST, METALLICA: SOME KIND OF MONSTER) is the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial legal cases on the planet. An inside look at the infamous $27 billion "Amazon Chernobyl" case, CRUDE is a real-life high stakes legal drama set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film subverts the conventions of advocacy filmmaking as it examines a complicated situation from all angles while bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus.

“Thorough and impassioned… intelligently and artfully made.” (A.O. Scott, The New York Times)

“A powerhouse of a documentary! This one means to shake you. And in Berlinger’s hands, it does.” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone)

“I would have sworn that The Cove had the Oscar sewn up for best documentary this year. But Joe Berlinger’s Crude, which opens next Wednesday (9.9.09), will be in the thick of the Oscar fight.” (Marshall Fine, The Huffington Post)

“An amazing, sobering, heartbreaking film. Beautifully shot, it captures the magic of the Amazon, and the horrors inflicted upon it … and also the beauty of the Ecuadorian people.” (Howard Zinn, Author, A People’s History of the United States)

CRUDE playing in Philadelphia at the Ritz at the Bourse on October 9th-15th.