Bananas!*

Juan “Accidentes” Dominguez is hot on the trail of a case. A Southern California personal injury lawyer who advertises on L.A. buses, Dominguez's new mission is to force an American corporation to take responsibility for its actions outside U.S. borders. That corporation is the Dole Food Company, and this is a legal battle over Dole's use of the pesticide Nemagon, a DBCP-based compound banned in the U.S. since 1979. Dominguez flies to Nicaragua to represent 12 of the 10,000 Dole banana workers who claim they were sickened by the chemical. Chinandega, Nicaragua is an ecological nightmare. Nemagon, typically mixed with water and sprayed over plantations where the workers live, has left its mark everywhere. Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten's “David and Goliath” story has caused people around the world to go BANANAS!*. Citing defamation, Dole attempted to stop screenings of his film at the Los Angeles Film Festival. This caused a backlash in the Swedish Parliament and with the International Federation of Journalists. Swedish hamburger chain Max even stopped selling Dole fruit salad. Gertten uses interviews and documentation of court trials to peel away the facts behind the ground-breaking case, which will determine how multinational businesses may treat workers in the future. (In English and Spanish with subtitles) – B.B.