August 24th, 2012
Big Boys Gone Bananas!* will be in cinemas on September 21st, and we are pleased to bring you the trailer and poster.
Bananas!* shed new light on the global politics of food, recounting the lawsuit that 12 Nicaraguan plantation workers successfully brought against the fruit giant Dole Food Company. Now comes Big Boys Gone Bananas!*, a story about what happened to director Fredrik Gertten when the film got released:
What is a big corporation capable of doing in order to protect its brand? Recently, Swedish documentary filmmaker Fredrik Gertten experienced this personally. BANANAS!* was selected for competition by the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival. Nothing wrong so far, right? But then just before leaving Sweden to attend the Los Angeles world premiere of his film, Gertten gets a strange message: the festival has decided to remove BANANAS!* from competition. Then, a scathing, controversial and misinformed article appears on the cover of the Los Angeles Business Journal about the film a week before the premiere. And subsequently, Gertten receives a letter from Dole’s attorneys threatening legal action if the film is shown at this festival and to cease and desist.
What follows is an unparalleled story that Gertten captured on film. He filmed this entire process of corporate bullying and media spin - from DOLE attacking the producers with a defamation lawsuit, utilizing scare tactics, to media-control and PR-spin. BIG BOYS GONE BANANAS!* can be seen as a thriller and a cautionary tale. But, mostly this is a personal story about what happened to Gertten, as a documentary filmmaker and to his company and how the livelihood of documentary filmmakers can be easily put into jeopardy. This powerful film reveals precisely how a multinational will stop at nothing to get its way - freedom of speech is at stake. As Dole’s public relations company puts it, “It is easier to cope with a bad conscience than a bad reputation”.
Watch the trailer for Big Boys Gone Bananas!* below:
