TEHRAN (AIPFF) - AIPFF 2014 displayed "Plunder" which sheds light on massive disclosures and millions of job losses in the US as a result of predatory loan schemes sketched by massive banks.
TEHRAN (AIPFF) – AIPFF 2014 displayed “Plunder” which sheds light on massive disclosures and millions of job losses in the US as a result of predatory loan schemes sketched by massive banks.
An Emmy Award-winning former ABC News, Schechter exposes the behind backdoor forces that are responsible for the loss of mindboggling dollar losses and disappearance of retirement funds.
The all-out fraud and theft that led to the market’s collapse in fall 2008 are well scrutinized in the film by talks with former loan clerks and economic experts who were in contact with the unregulated system of frauds.
The former CNN producer highlights the epidemic of insurmountable mortgages, lending and high-risk hedge funds which led to the fall of the housing market and ended in a thorough economics meltdown in the same year.
The film draws an in-depth comparison between the economics status of 99% of Americans with that of the remnant 1% and says that by 2009, over 70% of the wealth in the country was in the hands of only 1% of Americans.
Dialogues with a range of analysts and insiders about the origins of the crisis: bankers, respected economists, insider experts, convicted white-collar criminal Sam Antar, and top journalists, including New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.
The work also focuses on the mysterious collapse of Bear Stearns which disappeared in a week after 85 years of investment.
Furthermore, it delves into the complicity of major media outlets that failed to sound the alarm or investigate what was going on when the Stearns was melting down.
Danny Schechter is a journalist, author, television producer and an independent filmmaker who also writes and speaks about economic and media issues.
He is the executive editor of MediaChannel.org, the world’s largest online media issues online network, and recipient of many awards including the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2001 Award for Excellence in Documentary Journalism.
His latest films are Barack Obama, People’s President, an examination of how Obama won and In Debt We Trust: America Before The Bubble Bursts, an investigation of the impact of credit and debt on American society.
In Debt We Trust was one of the first films or media coverage to expose subprime lending and warn of an economic crisis. He was a director on Viva Madiba, a feature-length biopic tribute to Nelson Mandela on his 90th Birthday. (2008).
Schechter is co-founder and executive producer of Globalvision, a New York-based television and film production company now in its 21st year.
Schechter has specialized in investigative reporting and producing programming about the interface between human rights, journalism, popular music and society. His career began as the “News Dissector” at Boston’s leading rock station, WBCN. Later, he moved into television as an on-camera reporter for WGBH (Channel 2) in Boston and then as a producer for WLVI (Channel 56) and WCVB (Channel 5).
Schechter then joined the start-up team of CNN and later became a producer for ABC News 20/20. He produced 50 segments for ABC News, winning two national Emmys and nominated for two others.
He has produced and directed many TV specials and documentary films and has spoken at scores of universities.
A Cornell University graduate, he received his Master’s degree from the London School of Economics, and an honorary doctorate from Fitchburg College. He was a Neiman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard, where he also taught in 1969. After college, he was a full time civil rights worker and then communications director of the Northern Student Movement, and worked as a community organizer in a Saul Alinsky-style War on Poverty program. Then, moving from the streets to the suites, Schechter served as an assistant to the Mayor of Detroit in 1966 on a Ford Foundation grant.
Schechter has reported from 61 countries. He was an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and taught investigative reporting at the New School. Schechter’s writing has appeared in leading newspapers and magazines including the Newsday, Boston Globe, Columbia Journalism Review, Media Studies Journal, Detroit Free Press, Village Voice, Z, Mediachannel.org, OpedNews.com, ZNET, Creative1, Global Research, Alternet and many others.
Filmmaker Info
Directed, Written & Produced by Danny Schechter
Produced & Edited by Ray Nowosielski
Executive Producers: Rory O’Connor & Anant Singh
Co-Editor: Alejandro Heiber
Contributing Writer: Ray Nowosielski
Production Manager: Herb Brooks
Associate Producers: Ryan Bennett & Sean Inouye
Assistant Producers: Aysel Endres & Marie-Emilie Dozin
Composer: Polarity/1
Audio Mixer: Rubio
Computer Animations by Erik Potter & Jessica Hyndman
A Globalvision Production
