STCinema: The Informant
Followed by Steven Soderbergh In Conversation

Following the highly popular STCinema screening and ‘In Conversation’ with Liv Ullmann recently, STCinema is pleased to present the film The Informant, followed by a talk with director Steven Soderbergh, the last screening for this year.

Academy Award-winner Steven Soderbergh will take a break from directing rehearsals of Tot Mom to talk on stage with Fenella Kernebone from ABC’s Sunday Arts immediately following the screening.

Based on Kurt Eichenwald's 2000 book, The Informant tells the tale of Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), vice-president of an agri-business giant, Archer Daniels Midland, who was unwillingly pressured into working as an informant on his company’s illegal price-fixing.

A Ph. D. graduate from an Ivy League university, Whitacre was a rising star at Archer Daniels Midland in the early 1990s who rapidly climbed the corporate ladder despite suffering from severe bipolar disorder. Whitacre became America’s highest-ranked executive to blow the whistle on his company’s illegal business dealings. He secretly gathered hundreds of hours of video and audio tapes over several years for the FBI in a price-fixing case which became one of the largest in history.

In the skilled hands of Steven Soderbergh, the story becomes a dark comedy / thriller in which Whitacre's good deed dovetails with his own struggles with bipolar disorder. Whitacre begins to believe he's a true secret agent. But as his incessant lies keep piling up his world begins crashing down around him.

The Informant is rated M and contains coarse language.