Company Town

Hmoty zítřka

March 1961 •Czech

Who’s Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics

October 1995 •English

This documentary profiles economist and writer Marilyn Waring. In extensive interviews, Waring details her feminist approach to finances and challenges commonly accepted truths about the global economy. The filmmakers detail Waring's early rise to political prominence and her successful protests against nuclear arms. Waring also speaks candidly about wartime economies, suggesting that government policies tend to marginalize the fiscal contributions of women.

Free Lunch Society

May 2017 •German

What would you do if your basic income was taken care of month after month? Would you stop working? Follow your passions? Take more risks? The four-figure sum that all four members of the Wardwell family receive each year from the Alaskan government’s crude oil profits goes towards a college fund for their children, something they would otherwise be unable to afford. Filmmaker Christian Tod, himself a fervent supporter of the idea, explores the model of an unconditional basic income and takes a look at trial systems already underway in the US, Canada and Namibia. Wandering the history of this utopia reminiscent of science fiction he eventually ends up in Switzerland, where the new system was voted on in 2016. In this multifaceted and highly entertaining documentary, Tod broaches life’s existential questions and fuels the debate on one of the most prevalent economic topics of our generation.

Why Plastic: Coca Cola/American Plastic

October 2021 •English

Whales beached after ingesting plastic, oceans soiled: a quarter of marine waste today comes from cans and plastic bottles. The drinks industry produces 470 billion single-use bottles each year, 25% of which come from Coca-Cola. Although the world's largest soft drink producer has set ambitious targets to prevent this environmental pollution, it has often failed to do so. In the 1950s, the company sold its drink exclusively in returnable glass bottles, which it washed and refilled. Two decades later, these were replaced by disposable bottles - a decision whose devastating effects still linger.

Zeitgeist

June 2007 •English

A documentary examining possible historical and modern conspiracies surrounding Christianity, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the Federal Reserve bank.

Zeitgeist: Addendum

October 2008 •English

Zeitgeist: Addendum premiered at the 5th Annual Artivist Film Festival. Director Peter Joseph stated: "The failure of our world to resolve the issues of war, poverty, and corruption, rests within a gross ignorance about what guides human behavior to begin with. It address the true source of the instability in our society, while offering the only fundamental, long-term solution."

The Cost of Cobalt

March 2021 •English

In the cobalt mining areas of Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), babies are being born with horrific birth defects. Scientists and doctors are finding increasing evidence of environmental pollution from industrial mining which, they believe, may be the cause of a range of malformations from cleft palate to some so serious the baby is stillborn. More than 60% of the world’s reserves of cobalt are in the DRC and this mineral is essential for the production of electric car batteries, which may be the key to reducing carbon emissions and to slowing climate change. In The Cost of Cobalt we meet the doctors treating the children affected and the scientists who are measuring the pollution. Cobalt may be part of the global solution to climate change, but is it right that Congo’s next generation pay the price with their health? Many are hoping that the more the world understands their plight, the more pressure will be put on the industry here to clean up its act.

La dette de la France 1974-2015

April 2016 •French

The Bubble

July 2018 •English

Diving deep into the true causes of the Great Recession, the financial crisis of the 2010s, renowned economists, investors and business leaders explain what America is facing if we don't learn from our past mistakes. Is the economy really improving or are we just blowing up another Bubble?

Bathtubs Over Broadway

April 2018 •English

When he started as a comedy writer for the Late Show with David Letterman, Steve Young had few interests and not many friends outside of his day job. But while gathering material for a segment on the show, Steve stumbled onto a few vintage record albums that would change his life forever.

System Error

May 2018 •German

Melting glaciers, gullied seas, the financial markets are about to collapse. Spectacular images of how growth continues to be blinding. Outside you can hardly see anything because of the smog and the smoke screen.

Davos

June 2021 •English

Beneath its reassuring façade, Davos is each year at the heart of the Western and capitalistic world. Every chief of State and everyone who is someone in the money world meets with their peers in the Swiss village. What is really at stake in Davos ? Julia Niemann and Daniel Hoesl create a fascinating observational documentary in which judgement is never handed out and where the dialectics of conflicts matter more than easy and reassuring answers. The film asks the viewer some uncomfortable questions by focusing on challenges that the new global economy poses to the world.

Le business du commerce équitable

August 2013 •French

More and more fair trade labels are entering the market and are being positively received by consumers. In 2012, around five billion euros were spent on fair trade products. But is it really always fair where it says fair? Filmmaker Donatien Lemaître visited plantations in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Kenya. The investigative documentary reveals how international corporations try to improve their image with the help of the fair trade concept - at the expense of small producers and their employees.

La zuppa del demonio

September 2014 •Italian

The China Hustle

March 2018 •English

An unsettling and eye-opening Wall Street horror story about Chinese companies, the American stock market, and the opportunistic greed behind the biggest heist you've never heard of.

Un jour en Italie

August 2017 •French

Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope

November 2019 •English

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn explore the causes and costs of addiction, poverty and incarceration plaguing America, from the inner city to small towns like Kristof's hometown of Yamhill, Oregon. While pockets of empathy and aid exist, are they enough to rescue the thousands of Americans in despair, for whom the American Dream of self-reliance is impossibly out of reach?

Spotlight on the Highlands

February 1948 •English

It's 1948 and hydro-electric power is transforming Scotland's Grampians.

Paname: The Ghost of the Great Frenchman

November 2018 •French

Ferdinand de Lesseps, known as “The Great Frenchman”, will embark in the greatest adventure of his life: To unite the Pacific and Atlantic oceans through a Canal in the Isthmus of Panama – without knowing that this will cost him his reputation, thousands of innocent lives and the biggest financial scandal of all time, up to that point: the famous “Scandal of Panama”. Today, the French capital is known as “Paname”.

The Power of Zero

October 2018 •English

As the US debt spirals out of control, it polarizes society and threatens to disrupt traditional retirement with an impending freight train of onerous taxes and draconian austerity measures.