Tribeca Film Festival: A Unique Perspective on the Madoff Meltdown

Eleanor Squillari in a scene from “In God We Trust.”

In early 2009, a journalist introduced the filmmakers Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek to Eleanor Squillari. The Bernard L. Madoff financial scandal was dominating the news â€" Mr. Madoff had been arrested in December 2008 â€" and as the disgraced financier’s former secretary, Ms. Squillari was a hot property among reporters and others hoping to untangle the crime.

“She was a fly on the wall in one of the most interesting rooms in financial history,” Mr. Kubicek said.

Fortunately for the filmmakers, the meeting went well enough to convince Ms. Squillari to join them on a documentary about the fraud. The film, “In God We Trust,” had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on Friday and will screen again on Thursday.

Ms. Squillari, who worked for the money manager for nearly 25 years, made plenty of appearances in the press in the months following her boss’s arrest. (It was Mark Seal, her collaborator on a Vanity Fair tell-all piece, who introduced her to Mr. Anderson and Mr. Kubicek.)

But “In God We Trust” offers a deeper picture of her efforts to help investigators and journalists dig through the records and piece together the full dimensions of the fraud. Ms. Squillari told the filmmakers that working on the film offered a way “to deal with what happened and start to heal,” Mr. Kubicek said.

Though the episode is most frequently described as a Ponzi scheme, the film also lays out evidence of extensive money laundering and other financial chicanery. Eyewitnesses like the financier’s former driver and his brother Peter Madoff’s former secretary describe in intimate detail the moments of collapse within the Madoff empire. Interviews with victims, meanwhile, humanize the aftermath.

“To do a financial documentary is all fine and well,” Mr. Kubicek said. “But to be able to weave in this human story and have someone like Eleanor guide us through it was the great thing.”

Mr. Anderson and Mr. Kubicek talked about “In God We Trust” by phone this week. In edited excerpts from the interview, they discuss their ultimate goals for the film and why they had no desire to talk to Ruth Madoff.

Q.

Did you have any fears that Madoff would seem like yesterday’s news by the time you finished the movie?

Andrew Macphereson Victor Kubicek

A.

MR. KUBICEK We thought it was nice to get a little distance from the actual day he was arrested. Of course that first year it was on the cover of every newspaper and magazine. But even though there was this enormous amount of coverage, people weren’t really going behind the headlines and giving a lot of detail.

MR. ANDERSON Even though this happened several years ago, not much has changed. People’s lives have still been ruined. There hasn’t been much legislative change. In fact, there’s not even been one trial. In October of this year, [five defendants] will go on trial. Even that aspect of it is still playing out.

Q.

Why was it important to have Ms. Squillari at the heart of the film?

Andrew Macphereson Derek Anderson

A.

MR. ANDERSON I think that having that human story, seeing normal people, is a way to engage somebody who maybe isn’t in finance. It’s the humanity that brings them in.

MR. KUBICEK It’s really a lot of dense, complicated information â€" this crime was so intricate and there was much more to it than most people realize. With her guiding you through it, she makes it really digestible and easier to understand. She breaks it down in a way that hasn’t really happened before.

Q.

Ms. Squillari is the vehicle for the story but it seems like you’re also broadly interested in the more middle-class victims, in general.

A.

MR. ANDERSON One of the things that kind of blew our minds is the vast majority of the people who got hurt by Bernie were pretty average, normal people who just worked and saved money.

MR. KUBICEK Everybody put their hands up when Bernie was arrested and said, “I’m a victim. I’m a victim.” But when you drill down and follow the money trail, there are two classes of investors caught in this scam. There are thousands of people who are legitimately victims and a handful of people who are serious beneficiaries. Because there are probably about 18 or 19 entities that made an absolute fortune with Bernie.

Q.

What was the most surprising thing about the case for you?

A.

MR. ANDERSON One of them was how Bernie just went straight off to jail. He clearly didn’t want to have a trial â€" what is it he didn’t want to be exposed? He certainly had the resources or could have gotten the support to fight this. It wasn’t just a Ponzi scheme. It was any kind of nefarious financial activity he could make money from â€" laundering people’s money, manipulating taxes. The Ponzi scheme was just one piece of a much bigger crime.

Q.

What didn’t you get into the film that you wanted?

A.

MR. KUBICEK We wanted to have Eleanor get in touch with Bernie. We were hoping to hear something from him, some response to the letters she wrote him, and of course we heard nothing. Some people asked if we were trying to sit down with Ruth. We weren’t. We wanted people who we thought would be objective and honest and help us uncover what really happened. As interesting as it would be to sit down with Ruth Madoff, I’m not sure what we would really learn there.

Q.

You also cover efforts by activists â€" some of whom were Madoff victims â€" to establish some regulatory protections for investors. Do you consider this film to be part of that campaign?

A.

MR. KUBICEK Absolutely. It’s ambitious but we really do hope we can make a dent in that conversation and make people aware of the fact that this is almost four and a half years old, and nothing has changed. The fundamental elements to protect American investors are not there and no one has really addressed any of this yet.

MR. ANDERSON This is definitely a cause. Watching Eleanor fight for this, getting to know all of these victims â€" we’re going to stay on this path.