Exposing a Growing Crisis: Jason Glaser and “The Affected”

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Director Jason Glaser’s film series “The Affected” explores the historical and present-day nightmare that is global agribusiness. The first film of the series, Banana Land: Blood, Bullets and Poison, exposes some of the devastating practices that have become business-as-usual in the production of the most consumed fruit in the United States. The impact that this conduct has on the health and safety of banana plantation workers throughout Latin America, who have become known as “Los Afectados” (The Affected), is a story that Glaser knows needs telling.

Jason, please describe Banana Land, the current film of your series “The Affected”.

In Banana Land, we take the ideas most of us have about bananas and turn them on their heads. Because of the political manipulations of agribusiness in the former Banana Republics, a longstanding — but little-known — system of exploitation exists there. Political meddling by the fruit companies has always borne fatal consequences: from the massacre of thousands of protesting banana workers by the Colombian military at the behest of United Fruit Company (later Chiquita); to the coup that overthrew Guatemalan president, Jacobo Arbenz; to the failed Bay of Pigs operation; and to recent payments to paramilitary death squads by Chiquita and Dole.

Banana Land asks questions: Why does brutality exist within “legal” industries like bananas? Why have these countries turned into agricultural factories that grow produce that their people don’t even eat? We expose the reality of a nasty industry that has created horrific suffering, and then show the viewer what other options exist.

It’s perverse that the people at the bottom endure so much to meet our insane appetites for various products. However, I don’t blame the uninformed consumer; there are few options on the marketplace, we’re cut off from so much information, and we aren’t told how things work and why. Our job is to educate and try to encounter viable options. You can’t just point fingers, you must encounter and enable the solution.

My work is concerned with Latin America and what we, as U.S. citizens and businesses, take from it without perceived negative consequence. One reason I focus there is I believe it is an area that, at first blush, is strangely unrepresented in the media in the United States. Being that at least 20 percent of our country’s population is Hispanic, it seems odd that we don’t know more about the region, but once you start studying the history of U.S. and Latin American relations, it becomes clear as to why we know so very little. Between official U.S. policy and corporate misbehavior, the track record is abysmal. When these two entities begin to align their interests, all bets are off as far as just how horrific human beings can be to one another in order to make a buck. It’s abundantly clear why we aren’t told more: it’s difficult to make the U.S. look like the good guys or make a lot of our corporate institutions look like anything more than butchers.

How much time and travel went into the making of the film?

We have traveled extensively in Central America, Ecuador, Colombia and throughout the United States. We’re two-and-a-half years into the project, with probably eight months to go. It has been a wonderful undertaking and the challenge has been balancing the film making with our day jobs and other humanitarian efforts. We’ve been to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Caribbean, the Andes, countless towns and cities. It has been a enjoyable way to see the world and engage in a great conversation.

What stage is Banana Land at now?

Right now we’re putting together our assembly. Nearly all of the issues we’re covering in the film are still evolving and we realized that we could go on filming interminably, so we have started editing with the goal of finishing an edit in the next four or five months. Once we have that edit, we will then shoot out the rest of the film based on what we think we need to accentuate or developments that we need to catch up on.

Was there a stage of film making that was more challenging than other stages, either physically, mentally, financially, or in some other way?

It has all been equally trying, but rewarding. Much of this has been self-funded and I’ve had to balance it with my day job, which is related to the work so it’s not such a stretch. This was a small project that became much bigger very quickly, as events started to unfold right in front of us. With a very small team and no producer, fund raising has been next to impossible. Next outing, we’ll raise the funds first. I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything, though. So far, we’ve been able to do what we need to do to tell a big story.

How did you find out about Fractured Atlas and what motivated you to become a member?

A good friend of mine introduced me to your organization. It seemed like a no-brainer: you offer a lot of services that make doing what we do a lot less painful. The insurance plans for equipment have been especially helpful. I feel that it’s a resource I need to use even more.

How has your Fractured Atlas membership benefited you?

In so many ways. We’ve made great use of the liability insurance offerings and, though most of our funding thus far has come out of pocket, we are glad that Fractured Atlas has helped us gain some funding through our fiscal sponsorship. Also, being featured on your blog and being part of your community is something that I think will prove incredibly useful as we roll the film out.

What other topics are you planning to make films about?

My work will continue to touch on deep tragedy. Too often, the people who are forced to immigrate to the United States for a better life have been displaced from their own country because of the actions of a U.S. company or U.S.-backed government. That’s not even ironic, it’s just inexcusable, especially when you see the amount of racism immigrants face here. I am going to continue to examine this disjointed relationship through the lenses of the mining industry, biofuels, and the drug war. If all goes well, I would like to make a film about the immigrant experience: making the journey and following a family as some are left behind and the rest make a go of it in the U.S., a kind of spiritual update to Balseros, the Catalan TV3 classic.

As a filmmaker, who or what are your biggest influences?

Without a doubt, my team and the people I’ve interviewed and coordinated with while making the film.

This is going to sound silly, but I don’t see myself as a filmmaker. I have a friend/influence, Steven Donziger, who is the lawyer featured in the film Crude. I asked him what it is exactly that we do, given all the angles we need to cover in our respective fights. He answered unabashedly, “Glaser, we’re in the Justice Business.” Well, that’s true ultimately and it’s an understaffed industry. I see myself as a organizer, a facilitator, a new kind of activist, one that draws on the great traditions of the real game-changers but recognizes that we have moved into a different age of communication. Our great challenge is going to be cutting through all of the very expensive propaganda used by industry. We’ll achieve this through using all the media available to us to get the message out in the most powerful and effective way possible.

Please describe the mission and work of the nonprofit organization you founded, La Isla Foundation.

The mission of La Isla Foundation is simple: to coordinate local and foreign institutions to address the needs of agricultural workers throughout the Americas and to facilitate a meaningful exchange between consumers and those who produce their food and fuel. By providing direct aid, the tools for self-empowerment, and legal recourse when warranted, we ensure the concerns of workers, their families and their environment are addressed. I think that statement informs all of the work I do; the film, my private job, and the foundation.

Is there a piece of advice that you have received along the way — either making this film, or in life in general — that has proven valuable and stuck with you?

“Always take your work seriously, but never take yourself seriously.” -John White, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and the greatest teacher I’ve ever had.

Is there any advice that you would give to a documentary filmmaker at the start of their career?

Being that I’m at the start of my career and that I’ve made plenty of mistakes, I think that it would be arrogant/foolish for me to offer advice. If pressed, I guess I would just say that there is no road map. You see a lot of people out there that want to know how other people became successful or even famous and it always seems to me that there is no road map, no simple formula. You need to be adaptable and always able to communicate what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, even as it evolves. There is a real feeling of liberation in work that has less and less to do with who you are and what you think the further you delve into it. It starts to become a reflection of a wider shared experience. So I’d say let that happen. I like myself a lot more now than when I started this endeavor and, I think, so do my friends and family.

What’s next on your professional horizon?

Building the Banana Land Campaign, so that we can motivate people to start questioning what the bananas they are eating represent, while getting this film distributed through any and all means possible.

How can we learn more about you, your films, and La Isla Foundation’s work?

We have a variety of online venues:

* The La Isla Foundation website
* La Isla Foundation Facebook Group
* “The Affected” movie website
* Facebook Group for the film and campaign
* Twitter for the Film and Campaign

Come to our kickoff event on December 6th at 6:30 PM at the Harlem School For the Arts, where you’ll hear more about the campaign, be introduced to evidence we have garnered against Dole and Chiquita, and hear a group of committed and incredible speakers, including author Dan Koeppel, whose book Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World has been featured on NPR’s “Fresh Air”. We plan on making this a monthly gig but this first event is very important.