Available to Watch May 15 at 11:00 AM - May 23 11:59 PM | Access to MSPIFF39 Redefined is geo-restricted to viewers in Minnesota and a MN billing address is required to purchase a ticket.
A look at Bell Pottinger (BP), a reputation management firm founded by Lord Tim Bell, and famous (or infamous) for helping to spin the truth about some of the worst dictators, companies, and leaders in the world.
Lord Tim Bell was nothing if not complex. A man of seemingly few (if any) scruples, he was praised at his death as being “great fun” and a joy to be around. But his campaigns to help disgraced leaders like Pinochet left a sour taste on most people’s tongues. BP would take hundreds of millions of dollars from US interests to sow fake news throughout the world, and was eventually brought down when it was proven that the firm used social media to sow racial hatred in South Africa, which led to a mass exodus from the firm. Directors Diana Neille and Richard Poplak peel back all the layers in this complex case, which shows the dangers of fake news by one of its most effective pioneers.
Director Biography
Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Diana Neille graduated from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. She is the director of the documentary short “Devout” (2012) and has co-founded two media startups. Influence (2020) is her first feature.
Richard Poplak was born in 1973 in Johannesburg, South Africa and studied as a filmmaker and fine artist at Montreal’s Concordia University. He is the author of the books Ja, No, Man: Growing Up White in Apartheid-Era South Africa (2007), The Sheikh’s Batmobile: In Pursuit of American Pop-Culture in the Muslim World (2010), and the experimental graphic novel Kenk: A Graphic Portrait (2010).
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