GRAND PRIX COMPETITION

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

THE BIG SELLOUT

GERMANY, 2006, 94 min., German, English, Tagalog, Spanish

Director: Florian Opitz
Producer: Felix Blum, Arne Ludwig
Cinematography: Andy Lehmann
Editing: Niko Remus
Music: Pluramon
Sound: Christoph Mohr
Production company: Discofilm
Print Source:
Gisela Wiltschek
Bavaria Film International
Bavariafilmplatz 8
82031 Geiselgasteig
Germany
Tel.: +49 (89) 6499-3506
Fax: +49 (89) 6499-3720
e-mail: gisela.wiltschek@bavaria-film.de
www.bavaria-film-international.de

The Big Sellout

In The Big Sellout seemingly independent lives from around the globe converge to showcase the vast and overwhelming effects of privatization on an everyday scale. Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, acts as our guide and breaks down the idea of privatization for viewers and indiscriminately discusses who profits from it, and what societies lose when following it blindly. As refined former director of the World Bank, he comes from the world of financial institutions, but today he is fighting for the losers of the privatization process. The film tells tragic, tragicomic but also encouraging stories of average people dealing with the devastation of privatization politics – their salaries, health care, water supply and transportation dictated by anonymous international financial institutions in Washington D.C. and Geneva, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO). From a renegade South African activist who helps poor families in Soweto that cannot afford to pay the high electricity bills anymore to a humorous British train driver and union activist and from a Philippine mother struggling to find money to pay for her son’s dialysis to Bolivian citizens of Cochabamba who fought against an US corporation that tried to take over the municipal water supply, this compelling doc tackles a complex and timely topic by giving it a human face.

Florian Opitz was born in Saarbduecken, Germany in 1973. He is a freelance filmmaker, writer and journalist. Florian studied history, psychology and English at the universities of Cologne and Heidelberg, graduating as M.A. Since 1998 he has made a number of political documentaries, mainly about globalization related subjects for ARD, ZDF and Arte. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in German History.

Filmography (selected):

The Big Sellout (2006);
The Hunt for the Killer Virus (2005);
The Last Days on the Western Front (2005);
The Arabs – Concept of an Enemy (2003);
Blood for Oil. The Wars for the Black Gold (2003);
Goliath’s Nightmare – Protest Against Globalisation Since Genua 2001 (2002);
The Sixties, miniseries (2001).

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