• Headlines for February 03, 2012
• NYPD Muslim Spy Scandal Grows With Newly Revealed Plan to Target Shiite Mosques
• Occupy the Super Bowl: Indiana's New Anti-Union Law Sparks Protest at Sport's Biggest Spectacle
• ICE Enabled East Haven Police's Racial Profiling By Detaining, Deporting Targeted Immigrants

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• Headlines for February 02, 2012
• "Gasland" Director Josh Fox Arrested at Congressional Hearing on Natural Gas Fracking
• Obama's Support for Natural Gas Drilling "A Painful Moment" for Communities Exposed to Fracking
• After Right-Wing Campaign, Leading Breast Cancer Charity Komen Drops Funding for Planned Parenthood

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• Headlines for February 01, 2012
• Romney Gains Momentum with Florida Win, But Gingrich Vows Prolonged Fight
• Exploring Mitt Romney's Shifting Stances from "Moderate" Governor to GOP Front-Runner
• Baltasar Garzón, Trailblazing Judge Who Pursued War Criminals, Faces Trial of His Own in Spain
• Is Former Haitian Dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier Off the Hook for Human Rights Crimes?

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• Headlines for January 31, 2012
• Taxpayer-Funded Freddie Mac Caught Betting Billions Against Struggling American Homeowners
• Ex-Marine Reoccupies His Own Foreclosed Home in Fight Against Freddie Mac, JPMorgan Chase
• "The House I Live In": New Documentary Exposes Economic, Moral Failure of U.S. War on Drugs

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• Headlines for January 30, 2012
• The Invisible War: New Film Exposes Rape, Sexual Assault Epidemic in U.S. Military
• Occupy Oakland: Over 400 Arrested as Police Fire Tear Gas, Flash Grenades at Protesters
• National Park Service Threatens to Evict Occupy D.C. Encampments at Two Parks Near White House
• Syrian Activist Speaks from Hiding: The Bloodshed is Continuing Despite International Criticism

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Democracy Now! just returned from Park City, Utah, where we covered the Sundance Film Festival’s documentary track for the third year in a row. While there, we spoke with Cara Mertes, who oversees the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program and Fund. In this interview, she describes how Sundance pairs selected filmmakers with advisory editors to "step back from the day to day and look again at how they’re telling the story." One of those documentaries, Bananas, drew the ire of Dole Food Company for telling the story of how its plantation workers in Nicaragua successfully sued the company for its continued use of a pesticide that can cause sterility and possibly cancer. This year, the follow-up film, Big Boys Gone Bananas!, also directed by Fredrik Gertten, premiered at Sundance and exposed the corporate scare tactics Dole used to stop the documentary from being shown. Mertes notes that "documentarians are taking on these questions of power and corruption, increasingly, as journalists can’t."

AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from Park City, Utah, at the Sundance Film Festival. And we’re joined now by Cara Mertes, who is the director of the Documentary Film Program and Fund here at the Sundance Institute.

Welcome to Democracy Now! and happy 10th anniversary.

CARA MERTES: Thank you very much.

AMY GOODMAN: So, 10 years of the documentary—

CARA MERTES: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: —track here at the Sundance Film Festival.

CARA MERTES: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about what the labs are here.

CARA MERTES: Sure, yeah. Sundance has a very unique lab structure. We’ve been doing that for 30 years, as well. It started with feature film. And it’s a very immersive retreat kind of opportunity. And we now have two doc edit story labs, and we bring a really creative village, actually, up at Sundance resort in the mountains, in the Wasatch Range. It’s incredibly beautiful. And we bring in about 25 or 30 people—advisers, directors and entire teams with films. We recreate their edit rooms. We bring in an assistant editor to support them. And then we spend the entire nine days, the entire group looking at each film and really helping the directors rebuild the film, from scratch, in a way, to revisit their original intentions.

And the whole idea is that we can really bump up the quality of the film by allowing the filmmaker to step back from the day to day and look again at how they’re telling the story. And I think the proof of the quality of the lab—we invite people that we really think can take the heat and really absorb all of this feedback, and pretty consistently we see those films are very successful on the festival and broadcast circuit. So, Queen of Versailles this year, which opened the festival, was a film that we labbed. And Lauren Greenfield will tell you it completely changed how she approached her storytelling.

AMY GOODMAN: Queen of Versailles, this brings up an interesting issue about taking on power, which so often documentaries do. You have another documentary here about the making of a film called Bananas!*, taking on Dole and pesticide use that ends up being used against Nicaraguan workers. The film, original film, Bananas!*, was to air at the L.A. Film Festival, and they were threatened with a suit. The filmmaker, a Swedish filmmaker, was threatened with a suit. Maybe you can tell us about what the next version of that film is that is now airing now at the Sundance Film Festival.

CARA MERTES: It’s premiering here. And interestingly, it’s Fredrik Gertten, is the filmmaker, who’s a journalist. And we supported Bananas!*, the original film. We funded and worked with him on it. And when he tried to bring it to Los Angeles, where the original lawsuit against Dole was based, Dole, of course, sued him, and sued the film festival. So it’s a very interesting cycle that we’re in now, as documentarians are taking on these questions of power and corruption, increasingly, as journalists can’t. What the corporations are doing, they’re trying to sue the weak link in the chain, which tends to be a non-profit. So, in that case, it was the Los Angeles Film Festival. In other cases, it’s the filmmaker, like Joe Berlinger’s case, where they go right after Joe Berlinger as an artist, who’s not making a lot of money, but he’s, you know, someone that perhaps the corporation can pressure into changing the outcome.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Chevron suing—

CARA MERTES: That was Chevron.

AMY GOODMAN: —Joe Berlinger’s film Crude.

CARA MERTES: Correct. And that also premiered at the festival. And so, this year, with Queen of Versailles, David Siegel sued Sundance Institute, actually, for defamation, and is not really something—

AMY GOODMAN: Well, explain what Queen of Versailles is about.

CARA MERTES: Well, Queen of Versailles is about the Siegels, and David Siegel owns the largest timeshare property business in the world, actually, Westgate. And it’s a portrait, really, of the sort of American Dream gone wrong, through the lives of the Siegels. And they’re quite extraordinary people, actually, for letting Lauren spend four years working with them. And there was a—there was a question of whether or not the film might damage the reputation of the company, and that’s what the lawsuit is based on. But interestingly, it’s directed toward the Institute itself, as a non-profit, to try and—you know, try and affect the outcome of, you know, the way that the film will roll out. And beyond that, I can’t say too much about it, because I’m actually named in the lawsuit.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Cara Mertes, I thank you very much for being with us.

CARA MERTES: Thanks.

• Headlines for January 27, 2012
• Despite Salary Caps, Treasury Approved Lucrative Exec Payouts at Dozens of Bailed-Out Firms
• NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly Urged to Resign After Police Conceal Role in Anti-Muslim Documentary
• Gingrich's Extremist Anti-Palestinian Stance Follows Millions from Casino Magnate Sheldon Adelson
• GOPers Claim Softened Immigration Stance in Bid to Win Florida Latino Vote, But Key Issues Ignored

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• Headlines for January 26, 2012
• Iraqis Voice Outrage as Haditha Massacre Trial Ends in No Jail Time for Accused U.S. Marines
• Glock: As Giffords Exits, a Look at the Gun Used in Tucson Rampage and Other U.S. Mass Shootings

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• Headlines for January 25, 2012
• Fmr. Obama Adviser: Focus on U.S. Inequality in Election-Year SOTU Has Occupy Wall Street's Imprint
• "He Says One Thing and Does Another": Ralph Nader Responds to Obama's State of the Union Address
• Egypt: Sharif Abdel Kouddous Reports from Cairo as Crowds Mark 1 Year of Revolution in Tahrir Square
• "In Tahrir Square": HBO Doc on Egypt's Revolution Through Eyes of Democracy Now!'s Sharif Kouddous

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• Headlines for January 24, 2012
• As Romney Releases Tax Returns, Fmr Senate Investigator Says: We've Got to Start Taxing Corporations
• "The Atomic States of America": Exploring a Nation's Struggle with Nuclear Power
• Robert Redford on How Truth Telling, Challenging Power Fuels His Passion for Independent Film

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• Headlines for January 23, 2012
• Medical Whistleblower Dr. Steven Nissen on "Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare"
• Raj Patel: In Attacks on Obama, Food Stamps, Newt Gingrich is "Racially Coding Poverty"
• Robert Redford Praises Rejection of Keystone Pipeline: We Can't Afford to Be at the Mercy of Big Oil

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• Headlines for January 20, 2012
• GOP Contest Rattled Before SC Primary as Perry Exits, Newt's Ex-Wife Speaks Out, Santorum Takes Iowa
• Ahead of South Carolina Primary, GOP Candidates Employ Race-Baiting Tradition to Win Southern Vote
• Tariq Ali: Obama's Expansion of Af-Pak War "Has Blown Up in His Face"

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• Headlines for January 19, 2012
• SOPA: Anti-Piracy or Censorship? Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales vs. Copyright Alliance's Sandra Aistars
• Obama Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline under GOP Deadline, But Opponents Prepare for Long-Term Fight
• Historic Effort to Recall Wisconsin Gov. Walker Reveals "People Power" After 1 Million Sign Petition
• Recount Leaves Santorum Ahead of Romney in Iowa GOP Caucus

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• Headlines for January 18, 2012
• Debating Tucson School District's Book Ban After Suspension of Mexican American Studies Program
• "The Operators": Michael Hastings on the Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan
• Expansion of Indefinite Detention under NDAA Compounds Extradition Fears of WikiLeaks' Assange

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• Headlines for January 17, 2012
• Wikipedia, Reddit to Shut Down Sites Wednesday to Protest Proposed Stop Online Piracy Act
• "Internet Censorship Affects Everybody": Rebecca MacKinnon on the Global Struggle for Online Freedom
• Journalist Chris Hedges Sues Obama Admin over Indefinite Detention of U.S. Citizens Approved in NDAA

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• SPECIAL: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in His Own Words

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• Headlines for January 13, 2012
• 2 Years After Devastating Earthquake, Haiti's Rebuilding Weighed Down by Legacy of Foreign Meddling
• "Memory is the Active Agent of Collective Social Progress": Randall Robinson on His New Novel Makeda
• On Eve of MLK Day, Michelle Alexander & Randall Robinson on the Mass Incarceration of Black America

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• Headlines for January 12, 2012
• Ex-FCC Commissioner Michael Copps on Media Consolidation, Broadband Expansion, Threats to Journalism
• A Path to War? Assassination of Iran Nuclear Scientist, New Sanctions Strain U.S.-Iran Relations

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• Headlines for January 11, 2012
• Romney Wins Republican New Hampshire Primary, Followed by Paul, Huntsman
• Romney Cements Front-Runner Status with Unlimited Spending from Unregulated Super PACs
• Rivals' Attacks on Romney's Corporate Record Display Occupy Wall Street's Wide Reach
• How New Hampshire Became Last U.S. State to Recognize MLK Day Holiday

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• Headlines for January 10, 2012
• Guantánamo Detainees Launch Hunger Strike to Protest Prison's 10th Anniversary
• Guantánamo Exclusive: Former Chief Prosecutor, Ex-Prisoner Call on Obama to Close Prison
• NDAA: Obama Signs Law Restricting Transfer of Guantánamo Prisoners and Expands Indefinite Detention
• Laid-Off Steelworker: Mitt Romney and Bain Capital Profited by Shutting Down Kansas Steel Plant

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