Company goes to court arguing that unused scenes from critical Amazon documentary may help it fight pollution claims
Rory Carroll, The Guardian
The oil giant Chevron is trying to force a filmmaker to hand over hundreds of hours of documentary footage about pollution in the Amazon in the latest twist in a multibillion dollar lawsuit.
The company wants to view unused material from the award-winning documentary Crude, about an environmental catastrophe in Ecuador's oil-producing Amazon region, to bolster its defence in one of the biggest lawsuits in history.
The 105-minute film sympathises with alleged victims of oil contamination but lawyers for Chevron hope 600 hours of raw footage shot over three years will include segments that could help them fend off potential damages of $27.3bn (£17.9bn).
The case has alarmed both environmentalists, who fear Chevron will get ammunition, and investigative filmmakers, who fear their integrity and ability to protect sources will be compromised.
Joe Berlinger, who directed Crude, said he would fight the request to hand over his tapes and digital archives. A district court in Manhattan is due to hear the case tomorrow.
"This is a violation of the first amendment and journalistic privilege," Berlinger said in a telephone interview. "Just because they want to look at my footage doesn't mean they have the right to look at my footage."
Crude, which premiered last year, focuses on the 17-year legal battle between Chevron and 30,000 Ecuadoreans who say their land, rivers, wells, livestock and own bodies were poisoned by decades of reckless oil drilling in the rainforest.
The plaintiffs say Texaco – which was taken over by Chevron in 2001 – dumped 68bn litres of waste water between 1972 and 1990, causing an epidemic of diseases such as leukaemia. Some have called it "the Amazon's Chernobyl".
Chevron says scientific tests show the water is safe, that the diseases have other causes, that Texaco cleaned up the site and that pollution since then is the fault of the state company Petroecuador.
An Ecuadorean judge based in Lago Agrio – a jungle town named after Texaco's headquarters – is expected to rule on the lawsuit within two months. Chevron, braced for defeat in what it says is a biased tribunal, has vowed to fight on.
Kent Robertson, a company spokesman, said one version of Crude showed the plaintiffs' legal team participating in a focus group with a supposedly neutral court expert – a scene edited out of the DVD version.
"We believe that Mr Berlinger may have also unwittingly captured on film other instances of improper collaboration between court experts and the plaintiffs' representatives that would further demonstrate the illegitimate nature of the entire Lago Agrio trial," said Robertson. "Through our discovery request we are simply asking to review Mr Berlinger's film archive to establish if there are other documented instances of misconduct."
The director said there was no smoking gun and that the controversial scene was not of a focus group but a routine meeting that indicated no wrongdoing. It was edited out on the basis of audience reaction at the Sundance film festival, a standard industry practice, he said.
Crude was a balanced film that gave Chevron's side of the story, Berlinger said. Had the Ecuadorean plaintiffs demanded the footage he would have rebuffed them too.
The filmmaker found himself in a similar legal battle when prosecutors and defence lawyers demanded raw footage from another documentary, Paradise Lost, about the murder of young boys.
He won that case but is unsure about beating a corporate behemoth. "I am hopeful but not confident. Chevron have the most expensive law firm in New York and very deep pockets. I have very thin pockets."
Berlinger said he had received support from hundreds of other filmmakers who feared a "chilling" impact on documentaries if sources' protection could not be guaranteed.
Both sides said they would appeal against an unfavourable ruling. Berlinger said he would comply if he was ultimately ordered to hand over footage. "I won't destroy it. I believe very strongly in the principles at stake here but I'm also the father of two children. I'm not willing to go to jail over this."
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