our brand is crisis Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's not every day that I'm intrigued by a remake. In a nice twist from the usual unoriginal remaking world, Warner Brothers has grabbed the feature rights to a documentary for George Clooney's Smoke House to produce. The lucky film is Rachel Boynton's political documentary from 2005 called Our Brand is Crisis. Now instead of re-doing the doc, British screenwriter Peter Straughan will be adapting it into a dark comedy.

The original Crisis focuses on the behind-the-scenes goings on from the Bolivian presidential election of 2002. Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, one of the candidates, had hired a D.C.-based political consulting firm to help him score a win and pull him out of his dismal poll numbers. Using focus groups, sloganeering and smear tactics, the man won by a narrow margin, but later had to resign due to the crisis that his rule brought to Bolivia. How the feature adaptation will differ remains to be seen, although Variety notes that it will focus on "the dangers of 'exporting' American democracy." And, of course, there's probably a good chance that ol' sexy, gray-haired Clooney will direct and star in the film -- which means we'll have to wait a bit to see it. He's already got Leatherheads filming now, and three flicks in pre-production -- Burn After Reading, White Jazz and voicing The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Whoever would've thought that this guy would go so far?

In early 2002, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada hired the American Greenberg Carville Shrum consulting firm to help him win the Bolivian presidential election. When GCS representatives arrived in Bolivia a mere 100 days before the election, Lozada, known as Goni, was languishing in the polls. A former president, Goni was seen as arrogant, conservative, and unresponsive by much of the country, and he was struggling to gain ground on his two main opponents, Manfred Reyes Villa, a wealthy former mayor, and Evo Morales, an indigenous representative of the country’s coca farmers. What happened over those 100 days - and, indeed, the next two years - is documented in Rachel Boynton’s Our Brand Is Crisis, an extraordinary story of American influence abroad and the power and value of democracy.

From the moment they arrived on the ground in Bolivia, GCS staffers, represented in the film primarily by pollster Jeremy Rosner, were faced with a tremendous challenge. Not only were Goni’s previous terms as president - which, to Western eyes, was a time of unprecedented economic modernization - seen by many of the desperately poor Bolivians as a time when thousands of jobs were lost to privatization, but his American upbringing and education left him speaking an American-accented Spanish, traits that did not endear him to the indigenous majority. Through the use of countless focus groups (always offered the same cups of flat soda, along with a single plate of potato chips to share), GCS realized their only hope was to discredit Villa, their client’s primary opposition and the early leader in polls. With unflinching honesty, Rosner and his associates explained to Goni how the smear campaign would work: they assured him dirt would be leaked through friendly press outlets, and nothing could be tied to him - he would remain nominally above the fray.

Great news for those of us who don't live in New York City, home of Film Forum - or even for those who do live there and are just too lazy or agoraphobic to get out much. Film Forum now has podcasts of their Special Events available online. Film Forum has many cool events for film geeks, and its mere existence has more than once made me reconsider my attachment to my Left Coast lifestyle. But now? I don't have to choose! I can live in Seattle, but when I get the urge to feel like NYC film-geek girl, I can slip into my requisite black cinemaphile attire and noise reduction headphones, close my eyes, and it's just like being there.

Recent Special Events at Film Forum have included a Q&A with Our Brand is Crisis filmmaker Rachel Boynton, Q&As with Dr. Alexis Burger and three participants from the film Desert Wind, and Who Gets to Call it Art? - a Q&A with director Peter Rosen and editor Jed Parker. Now if i could only watch the films they show at Film Forum online, I'd be pretty nearly perfectly happy.