It is actually ”a dirty business” to be interpreted in different ways: the use of chemicals in the flower farms and the consequent pollution of the Kenyan Lake Naivasha, and the abuse of people living there who have no labour rights, very low salary, long hours of hard work, sometimes unprotected against the spraying of chemicals… and so on, so forth. But the film  pleasantly refrains from shouting to its audience, on the contrary the director treats the subject in a careful way, in a low voice bringing the mentioned terrifying information to the spectators through the characters, he has chosen, who are the ones with whom we get linked emotionally:

The mother with three children who gets up early in the morning to make breakfast and who goes to work and comes back late evening to cook again and be with her children. The fisherman who claims that the water is polluted because of the chemicals from the farms. The man who sells water (from the lake!) and transports it around on donkeys. The young filmmaker-to-be who has filmed inside the farms and wants his footage to be shown all over the world instead of the lying news reports from BBC and other Western tv stations. And others…

I learned something I did not know about, I met some people whose life situation is tragic and I was touched and informed in an intelligent non-sensational cinematographically beautiful manner. Thanks!

Have a look at the site of the film, a very well designed and informative piece of work – and did you know that 300.000 people work in the flower industry!

Holland, 52 mins., 2009 (next bigger festival: DOKLeipzig)

http://www.newtonfilm.nl/

On this site the development in the critical situation around the survival of the National Film Centre in Latvia has been followed closely. And it seems like the independence of the Film Centre is saved. I wrote an email to Ilze Galite Holmberg, the director of the Centre to congratulate her on the succesful Baltic Sea Forum and to hear if things were clearer now. This is a clip from the answer from her:

There was a Cabinet of Ministers Committee meeting – and that supported the independence of NFC, with reforms, smaller budget etc, etc. This has to be officially confirmed by the Cabinet of
Ministers meeting, but we are told that normally it happens that in 99% cases the latter confirms what the former has adopted. So we have great hopes, but of course the reorganization will bring unpleasant things too…

… photo from Latvian classic “The Minutes Older”, director Herz Frank, camera Juris Podnieks.

Swedish director Fredrik Gertten fights back against Dole… the case that we have written about earlier on this site – go to “search” and write bananas to get the background Here comes today’s: From the press release:

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (September 10, 2009) — In response to a defamation lawsuit brought by Dole Food Company, Inc. against the makers of the documentary film BANANAS!*, attorneys for filmmakers Fredrik Gertten, Margarete Jangård and WG Film AB today filed a Motion to Strike Dole’s Complaint under California’s Anti-SLAPP statute, which allows the court to dismiss meritless lawsuits filed for the purpose of stifling protected speech.  Lathrop & Gage attorney Lincoln Bandlow serves as lead attorney in this matter.

As set forth in the motion, the film Bananas!* provides a balanced account of issues surrounding the treatment of banana workers and covers one of the many lawsuits filed by Nicaraguan banana workers against Dole and other companies regarding the adverse health effects suffered by workers as a result of the use of the pesticide DBCP in banana fields.  Dole’s lawsuit, as set forth in the motion, simply seeks to “poison the fountain of free speech” by intimidating anyone who speaks out on this important issue of public concern who does not comport with Dole’s “spin” on recent events pertaining to DBCP litigation. 

In addition to filing an Anti-SLAPP Motion, WG Film AB also filed a Cross-Complaint against Dole, seeking to recover damages for Dole’s improper tactics in interfering with the film’s premiere and its participation in the Los Angeles Film Festival.  As set forth in the Cross-Complaint, by “recklessly and falsely attack[ing] WG Film’s integrity and competency as a documentary film maker to the heads of corporate sponsors of the Festival” and making “similar false and defamatory statements to the General Consul and Ambassador from Sweden,” Dole caused the film to be removed from competition and clouded the film’s world premiere, causing the filmmakers substantial damage.

“We are very pleased that the truth about our film will finally be known and that the public will see that this lawsuit was simply an effort by Dole to silence the public discussion of important issues,” said Gertten, the director of the film.

Mr. Bandlow added that “if there ever was a lawsuit that cried out for the speech-protecting mechanism of California’s Anti-SLAPP statute, it is Dole’s absurd defamation action.  We are confident that once the Court sees the actual film, rather than Dole’s patently false description of it in the complaint, this action will be summarily dismissed, my clients can proceed with the film’s distribution and seek to recover the damages suffered by Dole’s censorship-by-intimidation tactics.”

An electronic version of WG Film’s brief with links to relevant clips from the film and other material can be found at:
files.me.com/jshaeffer/pt6ujd (file size: 880 MB). A copy can be made available upon request.

Excerpts from the motion (PDF):

The Anti-SLAPP motion »

Director Fredrik Gertten’s declaration »

Producer Margarete Jangård’s declaration »

About Lathrop & Gage: A full-service law firm, Lathrop & Gage LLP has almost 300 attorneys in 11 offices nationwide – from Los Angeles to New York. In 2009, Chambers USA ranked Lathrop & Gage’s corporate, environmental, intellectual property, litigation, real estate and labor and employment teams among the best in the Midwest. For more information, visit www.lathropgage.com or www.beentherewonthat.com.

For information and press enquiries, please contact:

Lathrop & Gage LLP Art Menke
Phone: +01 816 286 6385
amenke@lathropgage.com

David Magdael & Associates Winston Emano
Phone: +01 213 624 7827
wemano@tcdm-associates.com

Support BANANAS!* – join the Free Speech Campaign »

A house in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe a house in the centre of the universe. A couple lives there. They are artists, they do paintings and wooden sculptures. The sculptures have their own home in the house, a room for themselves where they stand in a circle, in harmony, in a room that is visited by the artists with lamps in their hands, pointing at them, making them come alive. It is a phantasy world with a couple – the man, who is talking in philosophical terms moving his arm around, a bit of a pretentious performance, but charming and with humour, if he is not throwing rude language at the woman, calling her dumb at one moment, and praising her as Mother Earth in the next. She looks strong, moves around as a powerful independent character, but she has her views on the relationship between man and woman: ”If she dominates it’s over”. Well, from the 48 minutes that I was invited to share with her and her husband, I did not get the impression of a suppressed woman.

And that is not at all what brilliant cameraman and director Kostomarov is after. He goes for beauty. The light playing in the face of the woman. Their hands cutting the sculpture figures. Their hugging and caressing, their letting the outside world be rude and cruel – they are murdering us, the man says peeping out of the window after a sequence with cranes and cars destroying something that we dont get to know what is. Not important, what is important is what we see inside, what Kostomarov (cameraman and co-director of ”Mother” and previously cameraman for Loznitsa) catches of Life and Love between two people who have been together for a lifetime. The name of the couple is Vladimir and Ludmila Loboda, and to summarize: This is such a wonderful intimate close-up of a Russian artist couple, an observation, yes, but what makes it extraordinary is the interpretative layer that the director adds, or should I say paints with his camera. There are superb sequences playing with light and shadow, where you see objects in the house or art pieces in compositions that stays in your mind. Taking the risk to have King Crimson music as an accompagnement!

Russia, 2009, 48 mins.