You’ve Been Trumped
… is the title of a new film by Scottish director Anthony Baxter (photo), who is being interviewed on the website of the European Documentary Network (EDN) that with this new initiative again stresses its own importance not only as an up-to-date information giver on documentary matters, but also as a network that picks up important stories from its members. In this case a story about a courageous filmmaker and his fight for his film and its content and people, a story that has included being arrested and threatened by a world famous American billionaire and his entourage. Here is a clip, read the whole, extremely interesting story on the EDN site:
You’ve been Trumped (click and you can see the trailer) tells the story of how American billionaire Donald Trump has bought up hundreds of acres on the northeast coast of Scotland to build two golf courses, a hotel and luxury homes. He needs to buy out a few more locals to make the deal come true, but the land he has purchased occupies one of Europe’s most environmentally sensitive stretches of coast, and the handful of local residents don’t want it destroyed…
… I live about 40 miles south of where Donald Trump is building what he claims will be ‘the greatest Golf Course in the world’ on one of Scotland’s last remaining wilderness areas – a unique stretch of coastline north of Aberdeen described by scientists as ‘Scotland’s Amazon’. The local newspapers, (the Press & Journal and Evening Express) were full of stories about how the Trump resort would mean a jobs bonanza for an area (which incidentally has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe) and never seemed to question the potential environmental impact of the plans. I felt the media enjoyed the spat between Donald Trump and Michael Forbes (one of the local residents refusing to sell Trump his property) but failed to get deeper into the lives of the local residents.
