The Yes Men Fix the World
87' (USA)
Directors:  Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Kurt Engfehr
Producers:  Doro Bachrach, Ruth Charny, Laura Nix

Description: 

The Yes Men Fix the World is a screwball true story that follows a couple of gonzo political activists as they infiltrate the world of big business and pull off outrageous pranks that highlight the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet. Andy and Mike are two guys who just can’t take “no” for an answer. They have an unusual hobby: posing as top executives of corporations they hate. Armed with nothing but thrift-store suits, they lie their way into business conferences and parody their corporate nemeses in ever more extreme ways—basically doing everything that they can to wake up their audiences to the danger of letting greed run our world. Andy, purporting to be a Dow Chemical spokesperson, gets on the biggest TV news program in the world and announces that after twenty years of denial, Dow will finally clean up the site of the Bhopal Catastrophe, the largest industrial accident in history. At Exxon, Andy and Mike demonstrate a new biofuel made from climate-change victims. It’s a gut-busting laugh riot—one of several in the film—to see the unsuspecting audience learn that the lit candles they hold are made out of dead people. And as they appear on the BBC before 300 million viewers, or before 1000 New Orleans contractors alongside Mayor Ray Nagin, the layers of lies are peeled back to reveal the raw heart of truth—a truth that brings with it hope. They visit the twisted (and accidentally hilarious) underworld of the free-market think tanks, where they figure out a way to defeat the logic that’s destroying our planet.

Biography:

Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno (The Yes Men) have been called “the Jonathan Swifts of the Jackass generation” by author Naomi Klein. They infiltrate the world of big business and smuggle out stories that are shocking and hilarious. Their 2004 feature documentary (The Yes Men, directed by Chris Smith, Sarah Price and Dan Olman) received numerous festival awards and was distributed theatrically around the globe. To direct The Yes Men Fix the World, Andy and Mike teamed up with legendary documentarian Kurt Engfehr, who is well-known for co-producing and editing Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine.

Contact Information:

The Yes Men, LLC
1618 Jefferson Avenue, #4F
Ridgewood NY 11385
E-mail: admin@theyesmen.org
Web site: www.theyesmenfixtheworld.com