Shining a light on 'Big Men' of oil in west Africa

Shining a light on 'Big Men' of oil in west Africa

Filmmaker Rachel Boynton launched to convey a brand new perspective on how the world keeps the lights on and cars moving around.

It took her nearly a decade, but the result is "Big Men", a documentary -- backed by Hollywood A-lister Brad Pitt as executive producer -- concerning the dynamics of oil production in west Africa.

The film includes rare access inside the boardroom of a US oil company operating to urge Ghana's new-found oil deposits out of the bottom.

Additionally featured are militants in Nigeria's oil-manufacturing Niger Delta region, whose insurgency crippled output until a 2009 amnesty deal.

"If (the film) were to come back to a conclusion it might merely be: everybody is looking out for themselves," Boynton told AFP in an interview.

Nigeria, where large energy revenues have largely been squandered through decades of corruption, was supposed to have been the film's primary focus.

However once Texas-based mostly Kosmos Energy began creating progress on wells off Ghana's coast, Boynton determined to feature the country into the story.

Getting consent to document the interior deliberations at Kosmos wasn't straightforward.

However Boynton ultimately secured the trust of 1 of the firm's executives and brought others on board by means of a PowerPoint presentation.

"The half of the film that is in Ghana is extremely concerning a conflict between a government and an organization," she explained.

"And therefore the conflict in Nigeria is extremely concerning a conflict between a government and its people."

- 'Not another Nigeria' -

Comparisons are typically drawn between the two former British colonies Ghana and Nigeria, notably since the former began business oil production in late 2010.

For many, Nigeria, Africa's biggest crude producer, is seen because the prime example of how oil wealth can wreak havoc on a nation if managed badly.

In Ghana, officers, private firms and civil society leaders repeatedly insist in the film that the country must not become another Nigeria.

Ghana currently produces roughly a hundred,00zero barrels of crude per day --less than the number that is stolen every day by bandits in Nigeria, which created concerning two million barrels daily during the last year.

Despite some minor bother spots, Ghana has thus far been typically praised for the management of its nascent oil sector.

There's no insurgency in Ghana's oil-producing heartland and also the country has been heralded for passing laws to market transparency and ensure the equitable distribution of cash from oil sales.

Boynton said it's too soon to inform if those laws have worked.

"There's no method to grasp the solution to that question for I'd say another 10 years, definitively," she said. "Everybody I spoke to in Ghana seemed to possess a real willingness... to try and do things right."

In Nigeria, that sense of optimism pale way back.

- Human nature -

The list of large corruption scandals linked to Nigeria's oil sector is impossible to count however one recent example sparked particular public outrage.

The previous head of the central bank, Lamido Sanusi, was ousted from office after accusing the state oil firm of stealing $nineteen billion (14.five billion euros) through 2012 and 2013.

The government said he was removed for "financial recklessness", though several dismissed that charge as spurious and suspected political motives after he dared to put vacant the extent of top-level graft.

And, whereas the amnesty in the Niger Delta has tempered violence, analysts concern that unrest might return when the deal, together with the huge payouts to militant leaders, expires in 2015.

Getting access to film the Niger Delta militants was a far trickier proposition than securing consent to line up a camera inside a US boardroom.

However Boynton succeeded, despite the very fact that the armed gangs that patrol the maze of creeks within the region don't generally enable ladies into their camps.

"Massive Men", that has earned four- and 5-star reviews from leading US critics, premiered finally year's Tribeca Film Festival in New York previous its wider US release last month.

Though it documents the interplay between the US corporate world, African governments and armed oil rebels, "it's not a movie that comes to some sort of political conclusion regarding the justice of a specific contract," Boynton said.

"It's a film regarding human nature."