The Producers

Adrien Pinon

Adrien Pinon, 38, is a sort of Swiss army knife: this French director likes to tell
stories but also likes to film them. After studying History at the Institut d’Études
Politiques de Bordeaux, he embarked on a career as a globetrotting reporter-cameraman. He specialises in nothing but is interested in everything. He has worked
in Afghanistan, Somalia, Central Asia, the United States and North Africa for most of
the major French broadcasters.

He eventually veered away from journalism and towards documentary filmmaking.
In 2015, he directed Megalo Mall (52 mins, France Télévisions) for Little Big
Story, then filmed Welcome Chez Nous (52 mins, La Chaine parlementaire), a film
about the arrival of thirty Afghan migrants in a small village in Normandy.

For The World According to Amazon, his investigation lasted over two years,
during which time he felt obliged to give up his Amazon Prime subscription.

Thomas Lafarge

After graduating from university in 2010, Thomas Lafarge joined the CAPA agency as a reporter. In the process, he made his first documentary film working with Gédéon Programs.

Thomas is just as demanding on the quality of the content as he is on the aesthetics of the form. He directed two documentaries on the economic crises in the United States and Europe (Toute L'Histoire), then on immigration policies in France since 1974 (Toute L'Histoire). In 2013, he flies to New York and for several weeks he pointed his camera in the direction of Harlem.

This led to the documentary film Harlem Two Faces (Escales). Passionate about politics and economics, he chose to devote himself to his first passion: investigative reporting.

Drunk with rage after being denied a mortgage loan, he co-directed alongside Xavier Harel the film BNP Paribas, Dans Eaux Troubles de la plus grande banque europeenne in 2018, produced by Little Big Story (France 3, RTBF). He won the Investigation Award at FIGRA 2019 for this film.

Making The Film

Director's Statement

"We all think we know Amazon, seeing as all of us have become Amazon’s customers.
The company has enrolled millions of us in its consumer platform through the sheer
quality and speed of its services.

And yet, when we began this investigation, we could have never imagined that it
would take us to the heart of the Texas desert, or into the chaotic bazaars of India, or to the icy stretches of Canada's far north. We did not foresee we would be trying to understand the influence of San Francisco’s hippy counterculture on the tech world, or that we would be meeting with workers in the heart of Central Europe or with the homeless population of Seattle.

Investigating Amazon allows one to appreciate just how strongly a single multinational can hold the planet in its grip. It also reveals how the world is being
transformed right before our eyes. Amazon is not only revolutionizing commerce
and trade; it also represents a whole new phase of our economy, one in which
businesses do not even need to be profitable to grow, expand, and infiltrate all aspects of our lives. Amazon is a conquering powerhouse on the prowl. And for the moment, nobody seems able to stop it.

If Amazon is not an exception of modern capitalism, it does however uniquely embody the opposite interests that separate the consumer from the citizen. Amazon has successfully built a model that strengthens consumer power while weakening civic life. It confronts us to our own contradictions. Do we want a better world for our children or rather quick 24-hour deliveries before Christmas?"