This movie is a documentary that will likely cause you to consider taking all your invested income and put it under your mattress for safe keeping. You may have thought the 2008 market crash was bad but you just need to see this film to see how easily money can be taken from your mutual funds and pension investments to settle in the back pockets of Chinese capitalists and North American investors who are expert in shorting stock market investments. The film is scary to the max as you learn how ordinary people have been hurt by Chinese entrepreneurs who managed to fraudulently draw major investment into fake or nearly fake Chinese companies. The money lost by investors is in the billions and the scams are still going on. They take advantage of the deregulation of the stock market and the underfunding of the agencies set up to protect investors. This is an important film that deserves more attention but may very well not get it. Nonetheless it was interesting to see and the audience present for the screening were not just lefties like me but clearly many more well to do investors. The Q and A afterwards included the star of the film, an American investment company CEO who has lobbied hard to increase regulation but who freely admitted that he currently shorts these stocks and benefits from the lack of regulation. His opening line in the film is: “All the people in this film are evil…. Including me.”

Great stuff.

http://www.tiff.net/tiff/the-china-hustle/

Frederick Wiseman is an 87-year-old documentary director who has been making films for over 50 years and in that time produced 45 features. In the early days his films were political and in some cases banned. More recently his films are more descriptive and focussed on community life such as Brooklyn and Berkeley, artistic groups like the ballet and institutions like the National Gallery in London and this film about the New York Public Library. These later films are very long so if you choose to see them I recommend renting them and have the ability to pause and return. This is by no means to suggest they are boring. Wiseman has no script or apparent agenda. In this case of Ex Libris we are taken on a tour of the main branch on 5^th Ave. and visits to other branches throughout the city. He filmed visitors, staff meetings, board meetings, meeting of local community groups, librarians, library workers and many scenes of life in the library. In doing so he illustrates the central role of this library and libraries in general as they provide resources and nurture for the communities they serve. We saw a great interview with Elvis Costello, meetings of teachers in black communities, got educated about the nature of racism in the US, and many other events. We also learned about the problems of loaning e-books, convincing city councils to provide funding and how do deal with the homeless who use the sites for shelter. It was a fascinating look at one of society’s  most important institutions and specifically in New York City. An excellent film. Sadly Wiseman was not here for a Q and A but that is because he is in the process of making another film. I can hardly wait. I have a review of the National Gallery documentary in an earlier blog post – 2014. Enjoy.

Oh right. If you want to see another entirely different picture of the main branch of the New York Public Library check out The Day After Tomorrow, a sci-fi film about apocalyptic climate change starring Jake Gyllenhaal. LOL

http://www.tiff.net/tiff/ex-libris—the-new-york-public-library/