Life and Debt
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Life and Debt is a 2001 documentary film directed by Stephanie Black. It examines the economic and social situation in Jamaica, and specifically the impact thereon of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank's globalization policies. Its starting point is the award-winning non-fiction text A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid. Kathleen C. Fennessy's [review of the documentary] states "Set to a beguiling reggae beat, Life and Debt takes as its subject Jamaica's economic decline in the 20th century. The story has reverberations in the plight of other third-world nations blindsided by globalization, like Ghana and Haiti. After England granted Jamaica independence in 1962, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) stepped in with a series of loans. These loans were conditional on Jamaica enacting positive economic reforms - trade liberalization to give consumers access to cheaper products, privatization to ease the burden of government, and deregulation to give Jamaican entrepreneurs more economic freedom. However, the Jamaican government was unsuccessful with these reforms and left the country with an unreformed economy and $7 billion dollars in debt. The film blames the IMF and the West for causing this situation.
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