The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel

More than 17 years after their award-winning documentary The Corporation debuted, Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott are back with a sequel that picks up where they left off.

Documentary sequels are rare, largely due to the nature of the format and the subject covered in the initial film. That’s not to say they don’t exist, however, it’s just that the topic being explored needs to be expansive enough and have evolved enough that there’s more story to tell (think Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9 and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power). That’s certainly the case for The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel from directors Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott, which picks up where their 2003 film The New Corporation left off.

Their award-winning original dived into the optics and output of corporate structures: their malicious nature and what they actually bring to the global economic market. Or rather, what they don’t. At the time providing ground-breaking insight into organised capitalism, they return to look at new developments and how corporations have changed … or how they say they’ve changed. ‘Corporations are evil’ isn’t exactly a revolutionary concept, but what is fascinating is the fixation Bakan and Abbott have with how corporations have worked hard to rebrand as socially conscious, benevolent entities since their first film. Companies that care is a mantra corporations have been keen for the public to digest as global warming and climate change become an ever-increasing threat, but is that aim only skin deep?

Answering this question takes up a bulk of The New Corporation’s runtime as the filmmakers use a series of innovative techniques – like blending animation with archival footage – to tell a complicated story in a visually engaging manner. Heightened by interviews with a who’s who of economic experts and corporate talking heads, they weave together a delicate tapestry where every thread, every detail, is crucial when it comes to reaching the devastating conclusion. If the first film was considered a must-see at the turn of the century, the sequel becomes even more vital viewing in a post-pandemic world.

– Maria Lewis, Assistant Curator, Film

Learn more

READ: Why The New Corporation Is The Must-See Documentary Of The Year
Afdhel Aziz, Forbes, Oct 2020

READ: The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel Review: A More Profound Documentary Than the First One
Owen Gleiberman, Variety, Oct 2020