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Sting Kind Of Crude
Sting played an impromptu jam at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, but was really there to save the rainforest.
One of the 16 competing documentaries at Sundance is “Crude,” the story of Ecuadorian citizens filing a class-action lawsuit against Chevron Corp. The 15-year history of the lawsuit is documented in the film. Chevron was accused of contaminating water supplies around the headwaters of the Amazon River.
Photo: AP Photo
In this photo provided by Gibson Guitar, musician Sting, center, performs with the Gibson Guitar Band at the Gibson Guitar Lounge during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
“I have a walk-on in this film and nothing else,” Sting told the Associated Press. “I’m here to support the missus.”
Sting and wife Trudie Styler are founders of the Rainforest Foundation. They were approached by filmmaker Joe Berlinger to get involved in the movie. Along with the walk-on, Sting is seen in the movie onstage at Live Earth with The Police.
The mention of Sting and rainforests can produce passionate opinions, positive and negative. But Berlinger likely has a watchable film, considering he made “Brother’s Keeper,” which documents the story of a farmer accused of killing his brother, and “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster.”
Berlinger interviews indigenous people, who claim oil-tainted water has caused cancer, skin lesions and other ailments. Plaintiffs claim Texaco, which was bought by Chevron in 2001, left an environmental mess when it left Ecuador after decades of oil drilling.