Our Brand Is Crisis

The documentary follows an election campaign. The place is Bolivia and the year is 2002. The candidate is Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, known in the country as Goni. He had already served one term as president. The reforms of that term had been rejected by much of the country. To be elected again he works with American consultants. The firm is Greenberg Carville Shrum. James Carville leads the team. The consultants come from Washington to La Paz. Focus groups are run. Advertisements are argued over one by one. The data is broken down, and the strategy of the campaign comes out of that. The film also asks what these methods left behind in the country. James Carville and Evo Morales appear in the eighty seven minute film, which took a prize at the Full Frame documentary festival, an American production Rachel Boynton finished in 2005.