US activists have launched a parody website, Ourbrandiscrisis.org, as George Clooney’s new film, Our Brand is Crisis, opens throughout the US (Oct. 30). Modeled on the official website, the parody website tells the little-known story of the deadly consequences and grave injustice that resulted from the 2002 Bolivian elections covered in the film.
MEDIA ADVISORY
10.26.2015
Our Brand is Crisis Parody Website reveals how depicted 2002 election campaign resulted a year later in 68 Bolivian deaths
US activists have launched a parody website, Ourbrandiscrisis.org, as George Clooney’s new film, Our Brand is Crisis, opens throughout the US (Oct. 30). Modeled on the official website, the parody website tells the little-known story of the deadly consequences and grave injustice that resulted from the 2002 Bolivian elections covered in the film.
Our Brand is Crisis, starring Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton, is a semi-factual lighthearted portrayal of how US marketing consultants, Greenberg, Carville and Shrum, succeeded in helping their client Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada scrape to victory in 2002.
The movie doesn’t show that the real-life client of Greenberg, Carville and Shrum, Sánchez de Lozada a year after his election in October 2003 ordered the army into the city of El Alto where they brutally repressed protests leading to 68 deaths and 400 injured. Sánchez de Lozada then fled to the US together with former Defense Minister Carlos Sánchez Berzain. Despite detailed investigations by the Bolivian Attorney General that confirmed their roles in the massacre and two formal requests by the Bolivian Government for extradition, the US State Department has yet to respond positively.
The parody website, ourbrandiscrisis.org says: “Our Brand is Crisis became for hundreds of Bolivian families Our Brand is Deadly.”
Meeting many of the affected families in Bolivia who are still waiting for justice motivated Nick Buxton and other human rights activists to create the website. “It’s horrifying that the people who ordered this crime live in impunity here in the US. I hope this website will create pressure on the US State Department to do the right thing and respond to the families’ demands for justice.”
Jesusa Ticona ,whose father died in the 2003 massacre says: “They killed us like animals. I saw tanks and machine gunfire falling like hail stones…Sánchez de Lozada’s collaborators are already in prison; He should be there, too. He is the chief murderer here. He was the head, he ordered this massacre in Bolivia.”
The website can be seen at http://ourbrandiscrisis.org. The official movie website is http://ourbrandiscrisismovie.com
For more information, please call: Nick Buxton, 1-530-902-3772
1-530-902-3772 or email nomoreimpunity@gmail.com
+1 530 902 3772