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1/22/2013
A daring, thought-provoking and very timely documentary by award-winning filmmaker, Philippe Diaz, revealing that poverty is not an accident.
Narrated by Martin Sheen
Starring: John Christensen, William Easterly, Susan George, Chalmers Johnson, Alvaro García Linera, John Perkins, Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, Eric Toussaint
and Michael Watts
The End of Poverty? is a daring, thought-provoking and very timely documentary by award-winning filmmaker, Philippe Diaz, revealing that poverty is not
an accident. It began with military conquest, slavery and colonization that resulted in the seizure of land and other natural resources as well as in forced labor.
Today, global poverty has reached new levels because of unfair debt, trade and tax policies -- in other words, wealthy countries exploiting the weaknesses of
poor, developing countries.
The End of Poverty? asks why today 20% of the planet's population uses 80% of its resources and consumes 30% more than the planet can regenerate? Can we really
end poverty under our current economic system? Think again.
Filmed in the slums of Africa and the barrios of Latin America, The End of Poverty? features expert insights from: Nobel prize winners in Economics,
Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz; acclaimed authors Susan George, Eric Toussaint, John Perkins, Chalmers Johnson; university professors William Easterly
and Michael Watts; government ministers such as Bolivia's Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera and the leaders of social movements in Brazil, Venezuela,
Kenya and Tanzania . It is produced by Cinema Libre Studio in collaboration with the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.
The educational version of the DVD comes with the companion book "Why Global Poverty?".
"A sort of "An Inconvenient Truth" for global economics...a powerful description of how Western policies since colonialism have subjugated Third World countries"
Charles Masters, The Hollywood Reporter
"Its become conventional to blame the culture and climate of poor countries and poor people, at least in part, for their own plight, as if corrupt dictatorships, ethnic warfare and raw-material economies were somehow intrinsic to Africa and Latin America...Diaz's film argues that all those things were the result of a lengthy historical process. Africa's dysfunctional and often anti-democratic regimes definitely aren't helping matters, for example, but they themselves -- along with the dire poverty they can't manage -- were produced by the European and North American powers' relationship to the global South, from 16th-century colonization right through 21st-century globalization.
What's most profound, and also most controversial, in this analysis is the question of how much this pattern of exploitation continues today."
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com
"A fascinating history lesson showing that the world's wealth disparity began with the Europeans' military conquest of other continents, enslavement of indigenous people and colonization that resulted in the seizure of land, minerals and other resources, and forced labor, and that it continues today due to the existence and enforcement of unfair debt, trade and tax policies."
Jennifer Merin, About.com
"It's an eye-opening work, a persuasive and compelling argument you don't usually hear about on what is terribly wrong with our global financial system and the poverty it produces around the world."
Dimitirs Angelidis, Epsilon Magazine
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Now Available: Digital Download w/ Educational License
A director's narrative provides a brief history of the film and a context for the interviews and locational filming in South America and Africa.
A complete transcript enables viewers to study the text of the film carefully. Complete interviews with over 70 people round out the stories begun in the film.
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