“The Interpreter is the first movie ever filmed inside the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council chambers. Earlier films used only the exteriors or were filmed back when the buildings were under construction (and did not really have an “inside”). The producers approached the U.N. about filming there before, but their request was turned down. The production would have relocated to Toronto with a constructed set; however, this would have substantially increased costs, and so Sydney Pollack approached then-Secretary General Kofi Annan directly, and personally negotiated permission to film inside the United Nations. Annan commented on The Interpreter that “the intention was really to do something dignified, something that is honest and reflects the work that this Organization does. And it is with that spirit that the producers and the directors approached their work, and I hope you will all agree they have done that.”

This naturally outraged the Neo cons and the dogs were let loose on the New York based UN via News Corp ‘fair and balanced’ via Fox etc. Their mission - to discredit the UN generally.

At the time in 2005 Koffi pulled off some pretty impressive PR political moves to withstand the nastiness. One was a global release of a Nicole Kidman movie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interpreter

Kidman was very good in this movie with a perfect French African English accent, opposite old lefty Sean Penn. It was roughly about this time that Jamie Fawcett and Co were let loose on Kidman as a target also. And who was buying their snaps? The pro Iraq war News Corp. I think Ledger got the same harrassment after speaking against the Iraq war on the Denton show.

This kind of thing goes back all the way to Charlie Chaplin repudiating McCarthyism, an actor who spent time in a poor house as a kid. And stood against Nazism when it counted, only to be deported while on holiday by Uncle Sam. He got an academy award in 1972 to say sorry.