Bullfrog Films
50 minutes
Grades 10-12, College, Adult

Directed by Octavio Bezerra
Produced by BBC

DVD Purchase $79, Rent $45

US Release Date: 1994
Copyright Date: 1992
DVD ISBN: 1-59458-658-6
VHS ISBN: 1-56029-536-8

Subjects
At-Risk Youth
Brazil
Children
Conflict Resolution
Developing World
Development
Economics
Environment
Globalization
Humanities
Latin American Studies
Law
Poverty

Awards and Festivals
Best Documentary, International Latin American Film Festival
Gold Apple, National Educational Film and Video Festival
Golden Panda Award, Wildscreen
Developing Stories, Series 1: Environment and Development Series
Life and Debt

Economics and the murder of street children in Rio de Janeiro.


Brazil's massive $130 billion debt is the ultimate cause of the shocking assassination of 500 street children a year in Rio de Janeiro.

This hard-hitting docu-drama argues that the children's only crime is that they are poor and have nowhere to go. The film examines the links between Brazil's economic crisis and its tragic social and ecological plight following 500 years of domination and exploitation by Europeans, Americans, and now Japanese.

Other titles in the series are:

Lucia - The cost of an oil spill to a fishing village.

And the Dish Ran Away With the Spoon - Television in the Caribbean dominated by US programs.

Seeds of Plenty, Seeds of Sorrow - The darker side of the Green Revolution.

Rabi - Modern day fable on family values from Africa.

Suspended Dreams - The lasting effects of the civil war in Lebanon.

Web Page: http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/life.html

Reviews
"If there is a more precise and vivid essay on the root causes of Third World misery...it could not be more potent than Life and Debt."

Toronto Star

"A powerful polemical film."
The (London) Sunday Times