The Big Sellout (2006)

Sub-Genres - Social Issues  |   Run Time - 110 min.  |   Countries - Ireland  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Jason Buchanan

Filmmaker Florian Opitz highlights the pitfalls of privatization in this documentary that played at both the 2007 Hot Docs International Film Festival and the 2007 Chicago International Documentary Festival. To people like Nobel Prize-winning economist and former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz, privatization is tantamount to declaring war on the less fortunate. Self-described South African "electro-rebel" Bongani feels much the same way, and has even gone so far as to restore electricity to the homes of impoverished families who don't make enough money to pay the mountainous bills of their newly privatized provider. Likewise, ever since British Rail was privatized, train driver Simon has noted a marked decrease in service and maintenance and a troubling increase in accidents. With institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization dictating the salaries, transportation, health care, and even water supply of people all over the world, people on virtually every continent are now feeling the nefarious effects of privatization. From the mass exodus of Philippine doctors and nurses who refuse to bend to the privatization of health care to the mother who struggles to afford the kidney dialysis that keeps her son alive and the rioting in the streets when privatization of water went into effect in Bolivia, Opitz's film addresses a universal topic that affects people of all races and religions.

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Keywords

electricity, health-care, privatization, train [locomotive]