Crude – A Film on the True Cost of Oil

RAN’s ChangeChevron campaign has received massive public attention in the last month. Chevron is certainly feeling the heat from youth activists, religious groups, student groups, common interest groups, non-profits, and even Hollywood celebrities. The tens of thousands of Ecuadorians who have suffered disease, sickness, and the destruction of their homelands have found their voice in the thousands of activists who have worked so hard to propel Chevron’s social and environmental recklessness into the media spotlight.

In my last post, I spoke of Emergildo’s visit to John Watson’s home and his delivery of 325,000 signed petitions to Chevron’s headquarters. Emergildo’s stories of losing his children to the toxic pollution left by Chevron’s drilling made its way to many online publications and touched the hearts of all who read about it.

Emergildo’s story resonated with the people, perhaps, because a similar story had been told by director, James Cameron in his movie, Avatar. Avatar had been nominated for 9 Oscars and was expected to win picture of the year. James Cameron delivered a beautiful story of a people’s connection with nature and the destruction and irresponsibility of corporations. In so many ways, Avatar mirrored the real life story of the Cofan people and other Indigenous groups in the Ecuadorian Amazon who have been fighting Chevron over the devastating destruction of their land and culture.

The ChangeChevron campaign called for Avatar fans, environmentalists, and human rights advocates to urge James Cameron to mention the real life struggle of the Ecuadorian people in the Amazon. These courageous Ecuadoreans have been struggling for decades in a fight for their families, the right to drink clean water, and for their communities’ restoration and survival.

Though Cameron never went on stage to accept an award for Avatar, the thousands of Tweets and Facebook messages urging the world famous director to mention the Ecuadorian people’s fight against Chevron drew strong attention to the case. Emergildo’s story made it to Hollywood, and now it is making its way to college campuses, community centers, and the homes of thousands of people from New Zealand to Spain, Austria to Mexico.

There have been over 300 screenings of Joe Berlinger’s movie, Crude, across the world. Thousands of people are learning of the story of Chevron’s contamination in Ecuador and the increasingly difficult task of holding a major corporation accountable for its past deeds. Crude focuses the landmark case against Chevron and on the human cost of our society’s addiction to oil.

This week on a quiet Monday night, I decided to watch Crude on of Netflix.com. The two hours I spent watching the film filled me with anger for Chevron, immense sadness for the Ecuadorian people, inspiration from the lawyers who have dedicated themselves to defend the Indigenous people, and disappointment for the corporate world which continually practices business irresponsibly.

I felt only a glimmer of the pain these communities have endured for decades. Uncontrollable tears ran down my checks as one woman told the story of how her eighteen-year-old daughter was dying of cancer. “How can I take care of my daughter when they ask $500 dollars every two weeks for her treatment? I bought chickens to try to make money and pay for my daughter’s medical expenses, but everything here dies. The chickens go down to the river to drink water, and they all die. I can’t see my daughter because she is in the city. I can only try to help my daughter, but she is just skin and bones,” she says through tears.

Even more shocking was the soullessness of the Chevron attorneys. During the film, Chevron’s attorney, Adolfo Callejas is interviewed having said, “This is industrial exploitation permitted by law. This is not contamination.” WHAT?! The social recklessness demonstrated by corporations such as Chevron is even more disgusting than the messes they create.

Crude has been described as the movie Chevron doesn’t want you to see. It was a truly beautiful film which brought to life the horrors that the Amazon and the Ecuadorians have lived under for the past decades, and it thrills me to know that since a month of its screening launch, already thousands of people around the world have seen it.  But it must not end here.

These media and public successes are the baby-steps towards the long-deserved justice for the Ecuadorian Amazon and the people who inhabit it. It is these baby-steps that will bring victory in this fight. It is people like you, who will deliver justice, condemn Chevron, and ensure the existence of the Ecuadorians and the Amazon.

We can’t all do everything, but we can certainly do something. Host a screening, tell your friends about Crude, tip off your school editors of the story, write Chevron a nasty letter. Act now. Our rainforests and the Ecuadorian people who inhabit the Amazon depend on it.