BANANAS!*

November 19, 2011

Big Boys Gone BANANAS!*

Filed under: News — admin @ 3:55 pm

The follow-up to BANANAS!* is the true story about a Swedish filmmaker and a banana corporation. Dirty tricks, lawsuits, manipulation, and the price of free speech.

What is a big corporation capable of in order to protect its brand? Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten’s experienced this recently. His previous film BANANAS!* (2009) recounts the lawsuit that 12 Nicaraguan plantation workers brought against the fruit giant Dole Food Company.

The film was selected for competition by the Los Angeles Film Festival. Nothing wrong so far, right? But then Gertten gets a strange message: the festival removes BANANAS!* from competition. Then a scathing article appears in the Los Angeles Business Journal about the film, and Gertten subsequently receives a letter from Dole’s attorney threatening him with legal action. What follows is an unparalleled thriller that has Gertten capturing the entire process – from DOLE attacking the producers with a defamation lawsuit, bullying scaretactics, to media-control and PR-spin. This personal film reveals precisely how a multinational will stop at nothing to get its way – freedom of speech is at stake. As Dole’s PR company puts it, “It is easier to cope with a bad conscience than a bad reputation”.

The trailer above features our Distrify player. It allows you to watch the trailer and (later on) the whole film anywhere on the web, wherever this player gets embedded.

If you sign up with Distrify and share our player on social media, your blog, or your website, we’ll share our revenues with you. Every time the film gets sold through a player you’ve embedded, you’ll get an affiliate share of 10 percent.

Pretty cool, huh?

Read more at www.bigboysgonebananas.com »

Watch online

Filed under: News,The Film — admin @ 3:10 pm

Juan “Accidentes” Dominguez is on his biggest case ever. On behalf of twelve Nicaraguan banana workers he tackles the Dole Food Company in a ground-breaking legal battle for their use of a banned pesticide that was known to cause sterility. Can he beat the giant, or will the corporation get away with it? In the suspenseful documentary BANANAS!*, filmmaker Fredrik Gertten sheds new light on the global politics of food.

One third of the production price of the average banana is used simply to cover the cost of pesticides1. All over the world, banana plantation workers are suffering and dying from the effects of these pesticides. Juan Dominguez, a million-dollar personal injury lawyer in Los Angeles, is on his biggest case ever representing over 10,000 Nicaraguan banana workers claiming to be afflicted by a pesticide known as Nemagon. Dole Food and Dow Chemicals are on trial.

Another banana worker is being buried in a small northern town in Nicaragua. For his whole life, Alberto Rosales used his machete to remove weeds from below the banana plants. His son says his last years were filled with pain, a body that was itching all night — and in the end his kidneys stopped working.

BANANAS!* – the film that triggered Big Boys

This is the documentary that made Dole so upset in the first place.

bigboysgonebananas.com/

Watch Big Boys Gone Bananas here: vimeo.com/ondemand/bigboysgonebananas
Watch Fredrik Gertten’s latest film, Bikes vs Cars, here: vimeo.com/ondemand/bikesvscars

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