For Release: April 9 , 2007
"E nron : The Smartest Guys in the Room " is the inside story of one of history's greatest business scandals, in which top executives of America's seventh - largest company walked away with over one billion dollars while investors and employees lost everything.
Independent Lens , hosted by Terrence Howard, presents the television premiere of the Oscar-nominated documentary on Tuesday, April 2 4 at 10/9 p.m. CT on KET2 .
Based on the best-selling book by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind and featuring insider accounts and incendiary corporate audio and videotapes, filmmaker Alex Gibney's documentary reveals the almost unimaginable personal excesses of the Enron hierarchy and the utter moral vacuum that posed as corporate philosophy. The film comes to a disturbing climax as the audience hears Enron traders' own voices as they wring hundreds of millions of dollars in profits out of the California energy crisis. As a result, viewers come to understand how the greed of Enron's traders and their bosses had a shocking and profound domino effect that may shape the face of America's economy for years to come.
"Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" also features a newly filmed conversation with Gibney, McLean and Elkind reflecting on the events that have occurred since the film was originally completed.
Gibney sa ys, "Through Bethany and Peter's writing I saw that the story of Enron was more than a corporate scandal. I felt that the film would give me an opportunity to explore some larger themes about American culture, the cruelty of our economic system and the way it can be too easily rigged for the benefit of the high and mighty."
Independent Lens "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" is a production Independent Television Service . More information about KET programming and education services, as well as how to support KET, can be found at www.ket.org.