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TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-08-29
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvzsqpQB4Ng
so if you don't like the message try to shoot the messenger if you don't I mean if you shoot at the messenger it's mainly because you try to shoot down the message and there's a whole industry out there who are for sale for anybody who wants to take down an image or who wants to make people talk about other things think that they are more interested
in and so if they want to move lawmakers hope move to public opinion you come by their services if you have the money M. I'm for it got to number documentary filmmaker from Malmo and it's kind of cool to be documentary filmmaker right now because we have a great audience all over the world and if media icing crisis documentary film is certainly not we have a
growing audience and it's my job to to tell stories and if I do it well voices that are normally not heard we'll get hurt will get an audience but of course again if somebody don't like the message they might come after you and I can tell you I have some kind of almost roller coaster experience artists and dole foods is suing a Swedish filmmaker for wanting
to show a fraudulent documentary slamming the company wrong monomyth even land three addicted Gackt and stem cell down recalls Kevin on foot it'll get to do photodetector achievement by non us and look so in two thousand nine the primitive film called by non US I followed a court case in Los Angeles for banana workers from Nicaragua been suing dole food company for the use of the
banned pesticide pesticide tomato workers steroid and in the court case there was a letter from dell chemicals to producer of this this is the pesticides and if they told dole please stop using this pesticide because our American factory workers sterile and dole answered and said no no please send us more products this is a breach of a contract and in the end they kept using this
pesticides in in some countries six more years and some others opted nine years longer of to which was banned in the US and Europe can you imagine that kind of moral and of course they don't want to start to come out have a look up there on the in the end of the of the post I have an Asterix and the Asterix is like a reminder
to all of us to look for more facts because there's always something behind the glossy image of it of a message or offer for products and I think if we look for for the other side I mean input talk about but other companies hundred years of oppression all of of their logging the rain forests of grabbing people's lands killing union leaders off of taking down governments
that's what you to look at when you're going to see the the the beautiful yellow banana that's to story you also should know and this one can you imagine if that message would be in your your shop one third of production price a banana goes to pesticide so every conventional but I'm in your body it's been under this cloud of of of from the plains anybody
can imagine having your own kids living behind very close to plantation what is clouds drifting over you what a ground water was poisoned that's the story about the banana you have in your shop that one and so we had made his film would work for two years very tough and and it's a it's a long drive to do document we really have to dive into a
story but we were we done this film and we were accepted double world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival and it was a view toward it and it was cold so one month before the premiere we open our web page in which we put our trailer out for the first time it was may this is a very nice warm day it took twenty four hours
and we received a letter from does and it wasn't a love letter it was very very very tough letter cease and desist letter stop go away forget about your film if you show it we gonna sue you and it will not be easy it will be punitive damages meaning a lot of money that you have to pay we don't we know you don't have it so
it was kind of scary and the same letter was sent to festival to every sponsor of the festival meaning also big companies like American Airlines Heineken target supermarkets they all the CEOs of these companies also got this a package from told and you really want to scare people and they were quite successful because the festival the third Okita showed a film will place in a special
section little bit outside of everything so we will say this film is not true so they have found a way of of handling but when you send in a letter like that it's never only about lawyers about the whole spin it's about moving attention from one place to another and they had it tactic this is one Dominguez when the magus is a personal injury lawyer in
Los Angeles and he represents people who have no money so many Latinos and but he S. but the acts of some buses but of course if you're a white middle class media you will you will laugh at that guy looks like a sleazy Cuban number as chase doesn't and he's representing the bonnet workers and he was doing that without making any money on it he was
totally on continue see basis would would have alot workers adult constructive in a story about a very naive Swedish filmmaker who suddenly made this sleazy Cuban into a hero but in fact he was a crook and that story request that were true was extremely attractive to a lot of media it filtered out and it became the big story this should of course being the story that
dole kept using a banned pesticide even when when the producer asked him to stop but the John Lewis never went without the angle so I was there in LA trying to fan myself trying to get the story from the banana workers out but it was hard I remember I was I was said a P. had a photographer come to my hotel room they want to take
a picture of me and if the target was all the time to tell me to don't smile don't smile they wanted me to look really sad like a guy that really have fucked it up and then so it wasn't that funny should love it was actually it was not one of the best times in my life I tell you and but we showed a film and
after first reading we got a letter from dole saying he showed again was to you showed one more time and nothing happened and I returned to Sweden again the lovely summer day and yes they sued us and it wasn't I mean when it really came down to paper it was irv it was like seeing myself from afar you know it was the a DC feeling off
what is going on and how will this and because the guys these owners don't like plantation owners they are like from the different century their logic is not ours it's hard to understand how to think I didn't only sue me they also sued my producer Margaret's and our production company to put the lot of pressure on the various groups small group of people and if if
I had this kind of Al Gore louder now you can imagine decisive dole they make seven billion dollars a year account which so high and we make like yeah which some don't wear down here is it's like if there is no real relation between us still in the media it was dole versus Frederick dole versus a documentary filmmaker who fucked up and that story kept going
this is the the the poster from a film called big boys gone bananas which story I did about dole's attack on on freedom of speech and and then it was quite a tough time but we managed to turn the story around and it's actually started here and initiates chop but the corner where I live where I met a member of parliament from the Social Democratic Party
he knows Frederick can we do something from you and I said well why don't we show the film in the Swedish parliament and he then contacted the apartment Terry from the Conservative Party and they arranged to screening and then there was a pit petition in the Swedish parliament saying dole stop suing Swedish filmmakers and and they often did to withdraw to did the lawsuit because in
Sweden we have the oldest free press legislation the world is two hundred fifty years old today ray it's actually quite cool is ten years old and the Americans constitution's first amendment so that's the price of pride for Sweden the whole parliament stand up stood up behind us but it was also more factors it was consumers that said this is enough when it went into the shop
and said we don't want to see your dole bananas here because they're suing Swedish filmmakers so the story started to turn around I've started to feel a little bit happier and because it wasn't as much Frederick versus dole it was dole versus free press free speech and of course that's that's shifting the focus back to where it should be and of course also tried to shifted
back to have but I workers then this guy iPhone so I ended his lives here in Malmo and he he went into mac's hamburger Cissus we dish Humber chain and they'd sell themselves as green or a more responsible I mean you have to check them if they are but but and they gave him a free adult foot solitudes meals and he said come on account by
this many went home and he wrote a letter to to Max Hamburg says tell come on and it's not a cake and actually I was on the day after that your right to take it away from from tomorrow so they stopped selling the the different silos and suddenly the heat started to beyond on dole's built to hold a supermarket in Sweden felt not a pressure because
in their shops bananas is one percent of the same is an extremely rentable products so it's it and they they call dole to meeting in Sweden and I told him if you don't stop this lawsuit we have to stop selling your bananas and of course they didn't want to but when I started to do these projects the sale of fair trade but not source five percent
in Sweden Notre over fifty percent in there and overall sale of fair trade products have risen more than eight hundred percent so it it makes a difference if you talk about things and if if we ought to stay focused try to shift the focus by to where it should be there is no plan to be you know that's and and kids snow it's those serving Sweden
showing that fifty percent of all Swedish kids they really worry about the climate change and they somewhere so much today have pain in the stomach still what happens we buy more cars at this moment on in history with never been sold so many cars I should talk about climate but the car makers they invest in propaganda because they don't want to change the world they want
to change the world in their little pace their pace at six stream is slow and even when they fucked up totally like forts likened it this is Marcus Nilsson by in in our love them on the team scoring again but look at his chest it's a folks wagon brands we didn't have that before Volkswagen M. did this crooked finger decorum missions really really crooked things this
big honorable company they that the cleanest car was actually there most dirty car and and their message to the world is putting a brand out everywhere instead of doing the right thing it's kind of provocative anyway remember two dozen nights the banks went down and we thought all of us to many of us that now let's let's talk about the responsible financial system let's talk about
responsible banks and the taxpayers bailed out the banks and thirteen million people lost their homes in the US one banker went to prison more bankers went into the trump governments from the same criminal companies can you imagine how much they put into PR to change the world to make us talk about other things the minister talked about greedy since the Greeks fault there were there were
putting a lot of effort to making us get the ballot their mistakes and it's our job to try to bring this this the focus back to do what we should talk about because if we don't they will win the slightest orange because during the two thousand steam that presidential campaign in the U. S. lot of people start to talk about the hair color of Donald Trump
and and a lot of people were tweaking about it face booking about it whatever he said we hated it or we loved it and it meant over all that we didn't talk about the climate so in the U. S. TV the reporting on the climate change went down sixty since last year can you imagine if we had been talking about climate last year do you think
though trump would have won yes no politics for it so it's it's up to us if we really want to be part of that noise and we just we sending and entering into a debate that they creates you will you will never stand a chance so the kids are right there is no plan B. and and we have to also be returned to what we what
we tell our own children we tell our children to be good which it would tell him to beat take care of our planet's and we can't we we try to do we need to have that Morris for ourselves try to get out on the noise because there's a lot of noise out there and the P. R. the PR people the biggest industry on the planet right
now it's it's really growing and and they have the most skillful people form a journalist former politicians former military people they all and if you have a lot of money you can buy that their service to to make people talk about other things instead of the real things and our job well if you want change we need to fight back and we have to stay focused
