Monday, November 30, 2009

The End of Poverty? Think again - screening and panel discussion at the British Film Institute

The award winning film The End of Poverty? Think again, by Philippe Diaz and featuring a galaxy of critics of the orthodox economic policies of the past thirty years, will be screened on 12th December 2009 at the British Film Institute.



Voiced over by Martin Sheen, and with commentary by Amartya Sen, Susan George, Joseph Stiglitz, William Easterly, and many others including TJN's John Christensen, The End of Poverty? explores the roots of inequality and poverty going as far back as the conquest of the Americas in the 16th century, and explains how the looting of resource-rich countries is sustained by policies designed for that very purpose - including the tax consensus imposed on poorer countries since the 1980s which shifted the tax charge from businesses and rich people onto middle and low income households.

After the screening there will be a panel discussion involving:

Irene Khan - Amnesty International’s seventh secretary general and has taken the helm as the first woman, the first Asian and the first Muslim to guide the world’s largest human rights organisation. She is the author of the recent Amnesty publication ‘The Unheard Truth – Poverty and Human Rights’, which represents Amnesty’s new focus on global poverty.

Clare Short MP - Secretary of State for the UK Department for International Development from 1997 to May 2003. DFID was a new ministry created after the 1997 general election to promote policies for sustainable development and the elimination of poverty. She is currently the Independent Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood.

John Hilary - Executive director of War on Want, a charity that fights poverty in developing countries in partnership with people affected by globalisation. He has worked for the past 20 years in the international development and human rights sector, and is a recognised expert in many fields across the global justice agenda.

Colin Prescod has worked in film, television, theatre and academia. He is chair of the Institute of Race Relations in London, and a member of the editorial working committee of the international journal ‘Race and Class’, as well as chair of the Association for Cultural Advancement through Visual Art (ACAVA).

Philippe Diaz is the award-winning producer and director of ‘The End of Poverty?’. Having attained international acclaim for many of his productions since the 1980s, he established Cinema Libre Studio in 2003 with a consortium of partners as a vehicle for intelligent, independent films to be financed, produced and distributed.

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