Interview: Joe Berlinger

Before American missionaries came to the small Ecuadorian village of Lago Agrio in the 1950s, it was a place virtually unknown to the outside world. Now, 37 years after the U.S. company Texaco came to drill for oil, the village and the surrounding area is a festering site of contamination, a literal "death zone" at the center of a $27 billion legal battle with one of the world's largest oil companies.

The lawsuit is still in flux, and the stakes are high: The plaintiffs -- 30,000 indigenous Amazonians -- are suing for the environmental cleanup of a polluted area roughly the size of Rhode Island. They think the oil contamination has led to mass death and disease. Lawyers for the defense argue that Chevron, which acquired Texaco in 2001, no longer operates oil wells in Ecuador and that the cleanup of its drilling sites met with the requirements of Ecuadorean law. The case, they say, is nothing more than a ploy by the plaintiffs' "Manhattan lawyers" to cash in on big "juicy checks." Chevron also maintains that the increase in cancer and various skin diseases in the area is the result of "poor sanitation" and "has nothing to do with oil."

This David and Goliath tale is the subject of director Joe Berlinger's newly released film, Crude, in which he explores this epic 16-year-old legal battle with all the excitement and flair of a John Grisham thriller. Berlinger, whose other works include Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, was approached by Steven Donziger, the lead American attorney for the plaintiffs, who eventually convinced Berlinger to visit the site and meet the people there. The filmmaker saw a chance to tell a story he thinks addresses a "moral responsibility" that transcends even the best legal argument.

FP: Have the people of Lago Agrio seen Crude?

JB: I have not gone to show it to them, but I have [given permission to] community leaders to screen the movie ... free of charge all over Ecuador. We had a really wonderful screening [at the] Ecuadorean film festival. There was a line around the block. They jammed 1,400 people into the theater.

It was the best screening -- in terms of emotional response -- I have ever had anywhere, anytime. Pablo [Fajardo, the leading attorney for the plaintiffs] received a 15-minute standing ovation. People kept coming up to me to express their gratitude. The vast majority of them -- Quito [residents who live] middle -class lives -- had no idea that [the devastation] was taking place. It took an American filmmaker for them to become aware about what was going on in their own jungle.

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