Hi all,

The drama is building in the lead-up to the anticipated court ruling as well as the film’s imminent release date.

On the one hand, Chevron suffered a set-back when a judge fined them last week for trying to delay the case. The judge also granted the prosecutor’s request for a copy of a court documents that contain evidence that oil sites that Chevron certified as remediated in the mid-1990s are in fact extensively contaminated.

Just yesterday, Chevron fired back with allegations of corruption, releasing recordings that appear to implicate Ecuadorean officials and political operatives, including possibly Juan Núñez, the judge overseeing the lawsuit, and Pierina Correa, the sister of Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa.

It was not clear from the recordings and transcripts provided by Chevron, however, whether any bribes discussed in the recordings were actually paid or whether Judge Núñez was even aware of plans to try to bribe him. The tapes also did not demonstrate whether the president’s sister was aware of the scheme or had participated in it.

What is clear is that what began as a small local battle now has an immense, precedent-setting significance. The high stakes lawsuit is the largest environmental suit in human history, around the worst case of oil-related contamination ever. As this 17-year legal battle draws to a close, we can expect to see some last-minute salvos fired from both sides.

Crude was crafted in cinema verite style, following events as they unfolded over a three year period, specifically as an attempt to offer a balanced portrayal of this epic legal drama. The film presents a complex situation from multiple viewpoints and allows the audience to make up its own mind. At the end of the day, the most important thing for us is to draw attention to a heretofore under-reported story of environmental peril and human suffering, and for the truth to be told. The fates of tens of thousands of Ecuadoreans — and the future of how multinational corporations conduct themselves — hang in the balance.

Watch the film and judge for yourself. We look forward to hearing your thoughts after you see it.

-Joe Berlinger

Click here for showtimes and playdates near you.

Click here for group sales.

Lawyers arguing at a particularly damaged site.

At first dragged in “kicking and screaming,” CRUDE was not a film Joe thought he would ever make.  Today’s Huffington Post features an interview with the filmmaker in which he explains how he reluctantly came to realize CRUDE was a story he had to tell.

Some highlights:

“They were using a giant vat of canned tuna from the Ecuador equivalent of Costco,” Berlinger recalls. “Now these were indigenous people who had sustained themselves off the waterway for literally millennia. But they couldn’t eat the fish because the fish were all dead or poisoned and so they had to eat canned tuna.

“That image, more than anything, spoke to me. I felt like the universe was tapping me on the shoulder, saying, you have skills and you need to use them to tell this story. How could I go back and turn my back on those people?”

For the complete story of Joe’s journey, read the interview here.

From LA Times Aug 29, 2009

AGUINDA VS. TEXACO INC.

Chevron, Ecuador and a clash of cultures

Intertwined with the lawsuit are the indignities suffered by Ecuador’s native peoples.

The facts of Aguinda vs. Texaco Inc. haven’t changed since the lawsuit was first filed in 1993, but the world has. Climate change and environmental stewardship have become international concerns. The dignity of native populations around the world has been recognized in a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the United Nations. And after 16 years of litigation in the United States and, now, Ecuador, the lawsuit against Chevron Corp. has become a cause celebre among human rights activists and environmentalists. Last year, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney and a community organizer on the case won the Goldman Environmental Prize, the world’s leading environmental award.

As the world has changed, so has Ecuador. When Texaco began drilling in Ecuador’s Amazon rain forest, the country was run by a military dictatorship, and American oilmen were at the top of the power structure and social order. As recently as 2006, attorneys for Chevron — which inherited the case in a merger with Texaco — would arrive for court business in Lago Agrio escorted by uniformed army soldiers. Plaintiffs’ attorneys were unaccompanied.

Read the rest of this entry »

(Part one of a two piece editorial from the LA Times on the $27 billion environmental lawsuit filed against Chevron – and chronicled in Crude.)

From LA Times August 28, 2009

AGUINDA VS. TEXACO INC.

Oil, Ecuador and its people

Today, a swath of the Ecuadorean Amazon remains contaminated beyond imagining. Neither side disputes the devastation, only who should pay for it. Chevron says it is the state oil company’s responsibility.

In a small, spare courtroom in the Amazon region of Ecuador, Chevron Corp., California’s largest company and one of the world’s largest oil producers, will soon face a day of reckoning. After 16 years of litigation, a case the company inherited in a merger, Aguinda vs. Texaco Inc., is nearing an end. The legal battle that began in the United States in 1993 and resumed in Ecuador in 2003 has pitted the multinational against an unlikely adversary, a coalition of indigenous tribes and communities. A verdict is expected early next year. The plaintiffs are poised to prevail, and Chevron acknowledges that it is likely to lose.

The case is historic by several measures. Never before have indigenous peoples brought a multinational oil corporation to trial in their own country. Moreover, a victory would mark a turning point in the relations between native populations around the world and the foreign corporations that do business in their homelands. And the potential damages are staggering: A court-appointed expert has determined that they could run to $27 billion, almost 10 times that initially awarded to plaintiffs after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re happy to announce that we’ve updated the Crude website with some features that you may find useful.

We added a group sales form so you can take your friends, family, youth group, religious group or organization to see Crude. Just fill out the form for information on pricing or to book a group.

We also made it easy for you to join the conversation about the film on Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube – friend us there and help spread the word.

Finally, we’ve added this new blog, where you’ll get behind the scene scoops, sneak peaks from the film, breaking news about developments in the Chevron case, and ways to support the people of Ecuador.  You’ll be hearing from the team behind the film, from some of the people featured in the film, and from the filmmaker himself, Joe Berlinger.

More soon!

Joe Berlinger on Sundance's Meet The Artist

Crude is a David and Goliath story of a lawsuit against Texaco for allegedly having dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon region of Ecuador over a 30 yr period creating a cancer death zone the size of Rhode Island.

But a young lawyer who actually worked in the oil fields as a kid and saw the devastation decided that he would not allow his economic situation to get in the way, he became the leading lawyer in this incredible lawsuit – it’s the largest lawsuit against a big corporation in history.

Not only is it an important environmental story but it plays like a movie, it is a real who dunnit, it unfolds in the present tense like a great dramatic feature and yet it’s a documentary.

There was a price to pay for all the access – we had our hotel rooms broken into, we had stuff stolen, we got a terrible case of the chiggers and if you don’t know what the chiggers are you don’t want to know, I still have the scars from them, it’s hot as hell down there, you’re at the equator, it’s a malaria zone.

Read the rest of this entry »