Our Brand Is Crisis

directed by: Rachel Boynton

Executive Producers: Steven Shainberg, Robbie Kravis, Sanders Goodstein

USA, 2005, 87 minutes

with special guest speaker: professor Jean Franco from Columbia University

Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 7pm - reception to follow

Metro Cinema (Zeidler Hall)

Citadel Theatre Complex 9828-101A Avenue

free screening - courtesy of the University of Alberta

Film's website.

Synopsis

In elections around the world, American strategists-for-hire quietly mold the opinions of voters and the messages of candidates from behind closed doors. They work for presidential candidates on every continent - from Britain to Russia, India to Korea, Israel to South Africa, Mexico to Brazil.

This is the story of one of their elections.

"Our Brand Is Crisis" follows James Carville and a team of U.S. political consultants as they travel to South America to help Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (a.k.a. "Goni") become President of Bolivia.

When the consultants arrive the country is in crisis. But managing crisis is what the consultants do best, and Goni, they believe, is the best man to solve Bolivia's problems. Jeremy Rosner, Tad Devine, and others from the Greenberg Carville Shrum firm are the American advertising experts hired to sell Goni to the people. With flabbergasting access to situations that occur all the time around the world but which we're never allowed to see, the film follows the campaign from start to surprising finish - when the consultants and the candidate are confronted with a disaster the first polls never predicted.

"Our Brand Is Crisis" is about how the world works today. It shows us how American strategists have perfected the art of subtly reshaping our opinions - on everything from which soap we buy, to which president we elect.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

I got the idea for this film when I first heard about a group of Americans (not the ones in the movie) who had run an ad campaign to oust Pinochet, a dictator in Chile. For two years I'd been looking for the right idea for my first film and here it was - political idealism meets the profit motive. What could be more emblematic of us? I wanted to follow Americans using the same imagery and techniques used to market McDonald's to change the political future of another country.

So I met with every American political consultant I could find and tried to get access to a campaign overseas. Stan Greenberg was the first person I met from the Greenberg Carville Shrum group. His idealism appealed to me. When you're in a political campaign you have to believe, and he was a true believer. The men working for Goni (Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada), the pollsters in particular, were convinced they were making the countries they worked in stronger democracies by expressing people's views to the leaders, and by helping leaders communicate with the people. And when they spoke about Goni, it was easy to see him as a great visionary, fashioning himself after FDR.

It took me a while to realize the majority of Bolivians didn't see him that way. To Americans, Goni is clearly liberal; in the late 1990s Goni established BoliviaÕs social security system, created free maternal/infant health care, and reformed the educational system, all while attracting foreign investment. But in Bolivia, because he favored a market economy, Goni was often described as a right-wing conservative (perhaps our ideals weren't so universal after all).

At the same time, because I was shooting in Bolivia, I was able to get access to situations that occur all the time here, but which you'd never be allowed to film in America: detailed media coaching for the candidate, focus groups used to hone the message, emergency ad-making sessions to alter the message to fit the moment. I think the film shows a lot about the inner workings of spin, and how anyone perpetrating it can get caught up in it himself, his perspective limited by his desire to win.

Stylistically, I modeled the shoot after classical veritie. I struggled with finding a way to integrate interviews so they might become more like mini-scenes. I wanted my conversation with Jeremy Rosner, which is strung through the film, to slowly reveal details of the mysterious crisis glimpsed in the first few moments.

The edit took a little over a year and a half, partially because the story kept evolving and partially because it took a long time to figure out how to communicate all the necessary information without narration or too many cards. But I think now is a good moment for "Our Brand Is Crisis" to come out - an adventure story about Americans trying to spread their "brand" of democracy overseas.

- Rachel Boynton, February 2005

this screening is proudly sponsored by: