Hole in the Bucket

Suggested age range: 11 - adult
Estimated time required: 3 minutes running time
Format: QuickTime file

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Details: Made by the Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient) for Jubilee 2000, this short clip gives a powerfully personal face to the debt crisis. It was filmed in Nairobi, Kenya, with a small team of local actors. In Minghella's words: "We have been saturated by images of starving children surrounded by flies, calculated to elicit sympathy. They don't speak to us anymore." Taking a different approach, the clip opens with an African family scratching a living in various low-paid jobs. At day's end, the family members pool their meagre earnings. Leaving their house they are transported - by the magic of film - to Waterloo Bridge in London and thence to a suburban street. Here they knock on the doors of strangers, handing them money, telling them 'this is the money we owe you'.

"I am only a filmmaker," says Minghella. "I'm the least qualified person to talk about world debt. But if someone who obviously didn't have enough money to live on knocked on my door and said, `Here's some money,' I'd say, `No thanks, I don't want it.' But that is what we do every day by doing nothing about the unpayable debts of poor countries."

Download the lyrics of the song heard throughout the clip using the link on the right.

Cost: free

Curriculum Links include:
Citizenship
RE
Economics / Business Studies
Geography
Media Studies