RAPAPORT… ”The Ambassador,” a documentary that exposes the corrupt world of Central African Republic (CAR) officials, false businessmen and shady European and Asian diplomats that benefit from the world of blood diamonds, was released in New York last week.
The Ambassador follows Danish journalist and provocateur Mads Brügger, who purchases a Liberian ambassadorship on the black market and tries to show how easy it is to get a suitcase full of blood diamonds out of the CAR by posing as a diplomat who teams up with a blood diamond-mining kingpin.
“I want to show an Africa stripped of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Bono, child soldiers and kids with bloated bellies, to show the kind of people you never see in the documentaries: white businessmen and diplomats, the fat cats in the urban centers, all the people who are in post-colonial Francafrique (French Africa) having a great time,” Brügger said.
The film shows how Brügger, who enters the CAR as a rich white business man with diplomatic credentials, becomes a respected member of corrupt CAR diplomatic society who can pursue perks such as a reckless diamond hunt and power misuse.
The Ambassador premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and is available on iTunes. The documentary is showing at the IFC Center in New York City , the Cinefamily theater in Los Angeles and at Alamo Drafthouse locations in Austin. See the trailer here.
* Picture source: drafthousefilms photostream