© WESTDOC: The West Coast Documentary and Reality Conference |
WESTDOC co-founders Richard Propper and Chuck Braverman are pleased to announce that acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger will be featured at the WESTDOC Conference’s Non-Fiction, Keynote Conversation on September 14th, 2010. The award-winning filmmaker’s most recent documentary Crude is now the focus of an important First Amendment rights case and appeal.
Berlinger will address the state of documentary production and distribution today as well as his film Crude in a moderated question-and-answer session. Three years in the making, this cinéma-vérité feature tells the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial environmental lawsuits on the planet: a lawsuit by Ecuadorians against Chevron over pollution in the Amazon. Known as the “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. Chevron is currently seeking 600 hours of footage from the film in an effort to shore up their case in the long-running lawsuit. Lawyers for Berlinger are arguing on First Amendment grounds that his material is protected by journalistic privilege. The subpoena is now being appealed. Berlinger’s other celebrated feature documentaries include Brother’s Keeper, Paradise Lost and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. In addition to his feature documentary work, Berlinger has produced and directed much fiction and non-fiction television. He is co-executive producer and director of the Sundance Channel’s Iconoclasts, now in its fourth season. In 2006, he won an “Outstanding Nonfiction Series” Emmy as co- executive producer of The History Channel’s 10 Days that Unexpectedly Changed America. Click here for article in The Los Angeles Times |