- Denmark
THE AMBASSADOR
Synopsis
The Danish journalist Mads Brügger buys himself a diplomatic title through a Dutch middleman for $135,000: as Liberia’s ambassador and businessman “Mr. Cortzen”, he travels to the Central African Republic, officially to build a matchstick factory. In reality he wants to show, with a hidden camera, how the trade in diplomatic passports works and where it leads – to ministers, middlemen and blood diamonds. Brügger plays his role in riding boots and a cigarette holder, and the further he gets, the less clear it becomes who is using whom. “The Ambassador” by Mads Brügger, Denmark 2011.
The film is documentary and satire at once, and the question of whether it goes too far accompanied it from the start; the Liberian government threatened legal action. It screened at IDFA in Amsterdam and in 2012 in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at Sundance. The film was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2012.
Festival
Shown at the 2012 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.
