<nettime> Yes Men Meet the BBC in Amsterdam
Via: david garcia
Yes Men and the BBC
Collide in Amsterdam
Yesterday (28th of November) arch political pranksters The Yes Men
were 'pitching' for support for a new movie to a powerful panel of
commissioning editors at Amsterdam's important Documentary Film
Festival. The Amsterdam Festival pitching sessions are very
'upscale'. They are closed to the public, in fact access of any kind
is not easy and very few film makers are considered important enough
to pitch. Of course the world wide success of the Yes Men's previous
feature length movie meant that they were granted a slot.
The Yes Men were pitching to raise the wad of cash necessary for a
feature length documentary which would follow up and on their triumph
of hoaxing the BBC World News, the now legendary stunt in which one
of the Yes Men appeared as a representative of Dow Chemicals
declaring that they were making a generous settlement to the victims
of the Bhopal chemical disaster. And as a consequence sending Dow
stocks into a temporary tail-spin. The movie they are pitching for
would enable Yes Men to use all the opportunities and budget of a
feature length to go into corporate culpability for the Bhopal
disaster in far greater depth.
As one might imagine Yes Men made a succinct and persuasive pitch to
the panel. The format of the event was a little reminiscent of the
BBC's reality TV business program 'Dragon's Den' in which hopefuls
pitch their business ideas to a panel of stern venture capitalists.
Then the fun began as the moderator, (the zany and engaging Jess
Search, founder of Shooting People and formally of Channel 4)
provocatively kicked the ball to Nick Fraser the powerful BBC
commissioning editor (series editor of Storyville). Fraser promptly
threw what could only be described as a mini-tantrum, fulminating
that as the organisation he represented had been hoaxed by the Yes
Men, backing this outfit would of course be highly problematic. He
also declared (as though it was for all the world quite separate from
the BBC's position as hoax victim) that he found the work of Yes Men
totally uninteresting. He then tossed the ball back to the moderator
'if your so interested why don't Channel 4 take it up?. Search
responded that she was no longer with Channel 4 but declared that 'if
I was I would without hesitation'.
The rest of the session was full of banter in which great pleasure
was clearly taken in the BBC editor's discomfort, he was made to
wriggle as various commissioning editors proceeded to suggest that
this could perhaps be a test of the BBC's much vaunted 'objectivity';
after all declared Pierre Merle of ARTE France, 'although you were
hoax victims there is no reason for you to take it personally'.
David Garcia: Amsterdam
----- End forwarded message -----
Yes Men and the BBC
Collide in Amsterdam
Yesterday (28th of November) arch political pranksters The Yes Men
were 'pitching' for support for a new movie to a powerful panel of
commissioning editors at Amsterdam's important Documentary Film
Festival. The Amsterdam Festival pitching sessions are very
'upscale'. They are closed to the public, in fact access of any kind
is not easy and very few film makers are considered important enough
to pitch. Of course the world wide success of the Yes Men's previous
feature length movie meant that they were granted a slot.
The Yes Men were pitching to raise the wad of cash necessary for a
feature length documentary which would follow up and on their triumph
of hoaxing the BBC World News, the now legendary stunt in which one
of the Yes Men appeared as a representative of Dow Chemicals
declaring that they were making a generous settlement to the victims
of the Bhopal chemical disaster. And as a consequence sending Dow
stocks into a temporary tail-spin. The movie they are pitching for
would enable Yes Men to use all the opportunities and budget of a
feature length to go into corporate culpability for the Bhopal
disaster in far greater depth.
As one might imagine Yes Men made a succinct and persuasive pitch to
the panel. The format of the event was a little reminiscent of the
BBC's reality TV business program 'Dragon's Den' in which hopefuls
pitch their business ideas to a panel of stern venture capitalists.
Then the fun began as the moderator, (the zany and engaging Jess
Search, founder of Shooting People and formally of Channel 4)
provocatively kicked the ball to Nick Fraser the powerful BBC
commissioning editor (series editor of Storyville). Fraser promptly
threw what could only be described as a mini-tantrum, fulminating
that as the organisation he represented had been hoaxed by the Yes
Men, backing this outfit would of course be highly problematic. He
also declared (as though it was for all the world quite separate from
the BBC's position as hoax victim) that he found the work of Yes Men
totally uninteresting. He then tossed the ball back to the moderator
'if your so interested why don't Channel 4 take it up?. Search
responded that she was no longer with Channel 4 but declared that 'if
I was I would without hesitation'.
The rest of the session was full of banter in which great pleasure
was clearly taken in the BBC editor's discomfort, he was made to
wriggle as various commissioning editors proceeded to suggest that
this could perhaps be a test of the BBC's much vaunted 'objectivity';
after all declared Pierre Merle of ARTE France, 'although you were
hoax victims there is no reason for you to take it personally'.
David Garcia: Amsterdam
----- End forwarded message -----
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