Power Trip (film)

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Power Trip
Power Trip poster.jpg
Promotional poster
Directed by Paul Devlin
Produced by
  • Claire Missanelli
  • Valery Odikadze
StarringPiers Lewis
Music byChristopher S. Parker
Release date
  • February 14, 2003 (2003-02-14)(Berlin)
Running time
86 minutes
CountryUnited States

Power Trip is a documentary film by director Paul Devlin that describes the electricity crisis in the country of Georgia several years after the fall of the Soviet Union. [1] In 1999, Georgia's government sold the electric utility company Telasi to AES Corporation, a multinational company headquartered in Virginia. The film follows several AES-Telasi employees as the company tries to turn a profit and ensure that power is consistently available to customers in the face of widespread corruption and failure to pay electricity bills by both commercial and residential customers. According to AES-Telasi staff, 90% of customers were not paying for electricity when the company took over, partly because salaries were extremely low and partly because during the Soviet era, the state had provided free electricity. The film shows many shocking pictures of illegal wiring that people rigged up to steal electricity from buildings with power, creating serious safety hazards and straining the power grid. Government corruption ensured that some companies received electricity even if they did not pay for it for years. The film looks at the chaos and riots that occurred in Tbilisi after AES-Telasi started cutting off electricity to customers with unpaid bills. [2] The film exposes corruption in the highest levels of government as well as the plight of the Georgian people as they struggle for power. [1] The film ends by noting that AES Corporation, having spent many tens of millions of dollars yet with profitability nowhere in sight, sold Telasi to a Russian company.

Contents

Screening and reception

Power Trip has screened in 60 countries, theatrically across the United States and on PBS's Independent Lens . The film was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award in 2003, and has won 10 film festival awards, including top prizes at the Berlin International Film Festival, [3] Hot Docs in Toronto, Canada, and the Florida Film Festival. [4]

Stephen Holden of The New York Times described the film as a "superbly balanced and organized documentary" and "a skillful assemblage of newsreel clips, cartoons ridiculing the American interlopers, television commercials and interviews with power officials and ordinary Georgians." [1]

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Telasi is an electricity distribution company of Tbilisi, Georgia. In 1998, the company was privatized to AES Corporation, whose efforts to repair and modernize the electrical grid of Tbilisi were documented in the film Power Trip by Paul Devlin. In 2003, AES sold Telasi to a Russian company Inter RAO UES. The Russian company paid $26 million to AES for Telasi and in return AES paid off $60 million of Telasi debt, in effect paying Inter RAO UES $34 million to take Telasi off their hands. The sale took place less than a year after AES-Telasi CFO Niko Lominadze was found murdered in his apartment and numerous other threats were made to AES-Telasi management. In the end, AES lost more than $300 million on the Telasi episode.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Holden, Stephe (December 10, 2003). "American Know-How Can't Prevail Nohow". New York Times.
  2. "Power Trip," at https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/power-trip-award-winning-documentary-about-american-companys-struggle-to-manage-post-soviet
  3. "53rd Berlin International Film Festival: The Awards" (PDF). Berlin International Film Festival. 2003.
  4. "2003 Florida Film Festival Award Recipients". Florida Film Festival. 2003. Archived from the original on 2007-10-20.