The Film
The Finance Curse is a documentary adaptation of the recent acclaimed book by Nicholas Shaxson.
Around the world, working people face a curse: we are producing more than ever yet the finance sector is extracting all the gains. The film presents this “Finance Curse” in action through Kara, a Midwestern farmer fighting Big Agriculture monopolies; James, a nurse working at a dangerously under-staffed private-equity owned care home through the Covid-19 crisis in the UK; and John; former offshore financier-turned whistleblower who went on to lead the global campaign against tax havens. Their personal journeys expose the same financial tentacles extracting wealth from all our pockets. Their stories are matched with cutting-edge research, including interviews with the likes of Joseph Stiglitz, Mariana Mazzucato, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Yanis Varoufakis, to deliver a simple, empowering message: we can make finance our servant, not our master. We can properly tax, regulate and bring to heel financiers, corporations and the mega rich. Not only will this strengthen our democracy – our economy will prosper too.
In the spirit of The Big Short and Inside Job, and following the success of our tax haven film The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire (circa 25 million views to date, on a £4,000 budget,) The Finance Curse exposes how too much finance makes us poorer, and builds the case that for humanity to prosper, we must curb the power of financial capital.
The Impact Campaign
The Finance Curse film will play a major role in raising public awareness of how financial capitalism has built a rentier economy based on multiple mechanisms for extracting wealth from labour and land.
In order to maximise the film’s impact the film production team is committed to a post-release impact campaign which will disseminate the film and accompanying materials to audiences around the world. The accompanying materials will include books, promotional literature, a website, filmed interviews, and associated magazine, newspaper and broadcast material.
Working in collaboration with partner trade unions and NGOs, the impact production team will provide training and support materials to activists who can organise and support film screenings at workplaces, independent cinemas, universities, colleges, clubs and other locations where people can meet and discuss.