The Empowerment Project:: The Panama Deception

Panama Deception | Coverup | Destination Nicaragua | Raw Footage

Academy Awards® Acceptance Speech
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

Director/Producer, The Panama Deception
Best Documentary Feature
March 29,1993

Thank you. First, I'd like to acknowledge a most remarkable man. thewriter and editor, one of the producers, the co-founder and co-director ofthe Empowerment Project which supports many filmmakers every year,David Kasper (applause) as well as the other two producers without whoseperseverance the film would never have been completed, Nico Panlgutti andJoanne Doroshow.

We'd like to take a moment and dedicate this film to all the people whohave worked so hard for justice and truth and peace around the world.particularly the four people who died who were working in association withthis film; and the hundreds and possibly thousands of Panamanians who diedin this invasion, whose stories might never otherwise be told because of thedeceptive practices and tactics of our government, with the complicity(scattered audience hissing) - I don't like it either, but it's the way it is-with the complicity of the major media.

We would also like to dedicate the film to the courageous Panamanianjournalists and human rights activists who have defied the Panamanian banagainst the screening of this film at personal risk, to show it in the last fewweeks in Panama which, by the way, reversed the censorship ban which wasnationwide; and to the millions of Americans who may or may not get to seethis film now that public TV has also refused a broadcast.

In closing, I'd just like to say we have a tremendous amount of potentialin the world. Those of us here have a tremendous amount of potential toimpact the world. Let's use it. Let's challenge this new Administration toreverse the legacy that we have left through our policies in the world, andbecome the Americans that we're capable of. Thank you very, very much.

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