Fredrik Gertten
Big Boys Gone Bananas!
Part of
Big Boys Gone Bananas!

Big Boys Gone Bananas!

Fredrik Gertten

2011
88 min.
Sweden
English, Swedish and Spanish
Subtitles: Spanish and Catalan

What is a big corporation capable of doing in order to protect its brand?

Datasheet

Show
Direction
Fredrik Gertten
Executive Production
Fredrik Gertten
Sound
Alexander Thörnqvist
Distribution
DocsBarcelona Distribution
Production
Margarete Jangård - WG Film
Photography
Joseph Aguirre, Stefan Berg, Joakim Demmer, David McGuire, Frank Pineda
Music
Conny Malmqvist, Dan "Gisen" Malmquist
Synopsis

What is a big corporation capable of doing in order to protect its brand? Recently, Swedish documentary filmmaker Fredrik Gertten experienced this first hand. His previous film BANANAS!* recounts the lawsuit that 12 Nicaraguan plantation workers successfully brought against the fruit giant Dole Food Company.

That film was selected for competition by the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival. Then just before leaving Sweden to attend the Los Angeles world premiere of his film, Gertten gets a strange message: the festival has decided to remove BANANAS!* from competition.

Then, a scathing, controversial and misinformed article appears on the cover of the Los Angeles Business Journal about the film a week before the premiere. And subsequently, Gertten receives a letter from Dole's attorneys threatening legal action if the film is shown at this festival and to cease and desist.

What follows is an unparalleled story that Gertten captured on film

About the direction
Fredrik Gertten

Fredrik Gertten

Director

Fredrik Gertten, Director is an award-winning director and journalist based in Malmö, Sweden, and ow...

DocsBarcelona Trajectory

2013
Docs del Mes · January
Edició 2013
2012
DocsBarcelona Festival
Edició 2012

Awards and festivals

IDFA
Amsterdam, 2011
Cambridge Film Festival
Cambridge, 2012
Sundance Film Festival
United States, 2012
Hot Docs
Toronto, 2012
Bafici
Buenos Aires, 2012
Fredrik Gertten
Big Boys Gone Bananas!
Watch the trailer
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Reviews

Gertten's film deftly lifts the lid on the black ops of 21st-century "brand management". Dole comes out smelling of ordure.

— Xan Brooks · The Guardian

A sweetly quixotic documentary about the justice sought by a Swedish film-maker after Dole, the fruit-tinning company, tried to ban his earlier documentary about pesticide-poisoned banana pickers in Nicaragua.

— Nigel Andrews · Financial Times

A film that convinces you that individuals' actions can make a difference.

— Allan Hunter · Daily Express
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