Big Boys Gone Bananas!*/Bananenmaffia

‘Documentary thriller' by Fredrik Gertten, relating how fruit producer Dole Food tries to get his film BANANAS!* boycotted. The Swedish filmmaker reveals how a large multinational resorts to the use of all means to prevent the screening of his film. Even the freedom of expression is put at stake.

‘It is naive to think that you can attack a big multinational and get away without a fight,’ says Gertten’s lawyer in the sequel to his 2009 documentary BANANAS!*. Admittedly, anyone who makes a controversial documentary about things that cannot bear the light of day, is likely to meet with opposition. But who would have thought that a large corporation like Dole Food would go to the extreme when its reputation is damaged? BANANAS!* followed the lawsuit that twelve Nicaraguan plantation workers filed against the fruit producer for using a banned pesticide that causes illness and infertility. When the film is selected for the Los Angeles Film Festival, fruit giant Dole takes action, using the entire panoply of legal threats and intimidations and a merciless smear campaign. What follows is an unparalleled thriller that has Gertten capturing the entire process. As Dole's PR company puts it, ‘It is easier to cope with a bad conscience than a bad reputation’