Film: The Panama Papers

US/UK, 2018, 100 min, English with Eng. Subtitles, Directed by: Alex Winter

The Panama Papers tells the story of the massive data leak that exposed the largest global corruption scandal in history. Hundreds of journalists from 76 countries worked in secret, at great personal risk, to reveal a scandal involving corrupt power brokers, the uber rich, elected officials, dictators, cartel bosses, athletes and celebrities who had used the Panamanian law firm of Mossack Fonseca to hide their money for any number of illegal reasons. The reports detailed tax evasion, fraud, cronyism, bribing government officials, election meddling, and murder.

The investigation proved that the system is rigged, and cracked the vault of well-kept secrets and ill-gotten wealth, revealing vast and coordinated corruption among the world’s elite. The significance for the average, tax paying, law-abiding citizen is enormous; with the leaks showing that at least $32 trillion was hiding in more than 80 tax havens in 2010 alone. But breaking the story was only the beginning. There was immediate blowback from many of the named and accused, who are using every tactic imaginable to silence the journalists.

“Epic!” (LA Times), “Galvanizing!” (Variety), “Riveting!” (Salon)

Co-presented by Crossroads - Festival for Documentary Film and Discourse