CRYING FOR ARGENTINA

 

 

 

 

TANGO introduction + singing

 

svo – Irma Guevara

 

(introduction)

 

We lived in a rich first world country so we were forced to go and beg for food, for benefits, and our children are dying from malnutrition. This tango is about how they deceived us.

 

(tango singing)

 

What kind of a madhouse is this. In the depths of all this chaos they are coming to tell us that we are part of the rich first world.

 

It is so grotesque, so absurd so terrible, that it makes me laugh when I watch the news, to stop myself from crying.

 

LA BOCA

 

Commentary (start reading at the last second of the sunken boat shot)

 

4:16

La Boca,

millions of European migrants arrived here in the previous century, looking for prosperity in this rich country. Until the nineties, this was a flourishing harbour community, full of factories. Today nearly all the factories have been closed.

 

SVO - Allala Callo, Maritime union

 

This was a cooperative founded in 1977. It employed 300 workers for all sorts of ship repairs.

 

SVO - Allala Callo, Maritime union

 

We can see a hulk, ship wrecks along the quays.

 

This is what happens when the government pegs our currency to the strong dollar and privatises the shipbuilding industry.

 

This is the result : abandoned boats, closed companies and no future.

 

***********************

 

Ten years ago, the shipbuilding industry in Buenos Aires employed fifteen thousand people, now only eighteen hundred remain.

 

***********************

 

Across from here there was a kilometre of shipyards,

 

COMMENTARY

 

5:34

The closed factories at best serve only as storage space.

 

SVO - Allala Callo, Maritime union

 

5000 employees lived in this neighbourhood, now almost all of them are unemployed.

 

We see the neighbourhood become impoverished and degenerate, due to a lack of resources.

 

Commentary

 

6:01

If you climb up on the high bridge you discover a vast container park. Where the Argentine industry used to be, all that is left there now are imported goods.

 

The industry has been handed over to the global market without protection, the result being : this country hardly produces anything itself anymore.

 

AT LILA OLIVAÕS HOME

 

Commentary (read at end of pan)

 

6:23 A work of art by Lila Oliva, a sculptress for thirty years, she has won prizes, her sculptures are exhibited at home and abroad.

 

SVO - LILA OLIVA

 

This is a man and a woman.

 

A symbiosis, my interpretation of love.

 

************************

 

This dates back to 1986, a work about dance.

 

************************

 

This was Argentina in 1977, the time of the dictatorship.

 

COMMENTARY (read immediately after the shot change)

 

6:54

Lila is affluent and has money in a foreign bank, but the bank only wants to pay in  heavily devalued pesos, not in dollars as was promised.

 

SVO - Lila Oliva

 

I have always had enough capital to live well. But our bankers claimed that they did not have any dollars.

 

Our savings had been especially attracted by foreign banks with the promise that they would always remain as dollars.

 

*********************

 

This is what happened to the middle class.

 

They have destroyed that middle class, the driving force of Argentina.

 

The last year and a half I have been forced to go out onto the street, even us artists who live in ivory towers.

 

 

DEMONSTRATION SMALL SAVERS

 

COMMENTARY

 

7:52

Small savers vent their fury on bank buildings in the centre of Buenos Aires. They have been doing it three times a week, since the end of 2001.

 

Thieves, thieves, give us our savings back.

 

******************************

 

That bank has my money, the fruits of years of toil.

 

******************************

 

(driver in a small lorry)

 

They are right, sadly enough they are right.

 

***********************************

 

woman with a placard in her hands – no SVO

 

These are some Argentines who smuggled their money out of the country just before all bank balances

were frozen.

 

This is black money that has been diverted via the Cayman Islands.

 

Mister Devoto has smuggled out 50 million Euros that way.

 

Commentary

 

9:11 Nearly all the riches fall into the hands of a small minority of super rich who take their money abroad. This flight of capital is as great as the total foreign debt.

 

woman in front of the national bank – no SVO

 

The president of our national bank, 38 years old, has ten million Euros, twenty thousand Euros in Argentina,

and the rest in foreign accounts. And he wants to force us to exchange our money for treasury notes; he should bring back his own money and put it in treasury notes.

 

Commentary (on IMF image)

 

9:45

The National Bank also houses the IMF representative, he has something to admit.

 

SVO – Luis Cubeddu, International Monetary Fund

 

The middle class has been depleted, that is true. And we think that is very unfortunate. It is sad story.

 

COMMENTARY (on World Bank image)

 

10:06

 

High above the city, at the World Bank, they know about the mounting poverty É from their reports

 

SVO – Axel Van Trotsenburg, Director World Bank

 

(Spoken in Dutch)

 

2002 was a tough year. Poverty has skyrocketed, it went up from 38 to 58 percent.

 

 

LA MATANZA 1

 

(singing at demonstration)

 

We are going to throw out the president.

 

Commentary

 

10:34

Blocking roads, demonstrating, thousands of times the Argentines have already taken to the streets, angry. One of them is Liliana Galeano.

 

(singing at demonstration)

 

Blocking the roads is the new path towards our freedom.

 

SVO - Liliana Galeano

 

The textile factory Oeste used to be here. I worked there from 1977 to 1980. 2500 people worked there.

 

****************

 

Now a supermarket has replaced it, a place of consumption where the only products on sale are imported.

 

********************************

 

These multinationals have entered and destroyed our economy, the economy that employed many Argentines.

 

COMMENTARY

 

11:36

The La Matanza neighbourhood, with two million inhabitants, was an industrial bastion in Buenos Aires. Once upon a time everybody there had a job.

 

(in closed factory)

 

SVO - Liliana Galeano

 

This factory made inner tubes for bicycles, bladders of footballs, latex gloves and head caps, all products made of rubber.

 

************************************

 

The destruction of our industry started with the military dictatorship of 1976. This was one in a long line of factories that closed down.

 

 

DOZENS OF PEOPLE IN FRONT OF CLOSED FACTORY

 

COMMENTARY FADER

 

12:26

Rosario, 300 kilometres from Buenos Aires. A big crowd in front of the Fader factory, that is the first crowd in a long time, because the only Argentine factory of fridges and cooling systems closed down in 1998. These ex-employees, often with thirty years experience, hope that they can reopen their factory, at their own expense.

 

SVO – Alicia Belardinelli

 

All those who are here now, want to go inside and fight for work. You mustnÕt forget, we also fought in Ô98

but we were out on the street.

 

SVO – JosŽ Abelli, Movement for recovered factories

 

Nobody is handing out gifts. If we can almost take over the factory, then that is the result of our efforts and our struggle.

 

(old man without SVO)

 

Now we are setting up a cooperative, to reopen the factory, because it is ours.

 

AT THE FACTORY GATE

 

SVO – Alicia Belardinelli

 

It is terrible to lose your job, not have anything to eat, having to take your children out of school and lose everything, it is dreadful. My husband and I used to work here. Our house, we owed everything to the factory.

 

IN THE SHOPPING STREET

 

(OFF on walking Alicia)

 

We had a very good life, we went on holidays, had a car, we earned good money.

 

IN KITCHEN

 

SVO – Alicia Belardinelli

 

Our house was very beautiful. But look at it now, at how it all looks, the house is crumbling due to a lack of any income, look at the ceiling, when it rains, it rains inside.I have to buy a lamp but I do not have any money.

 

IN THE EMPTY LIVING ROOM

 

This was the living room, it was lovely I bought everything from scratch, first the table, then the seats,

and then the decorations.

 

IN SONÕS ROOM

 

My son was training to be a cook. for 30 Euros per month, that became unaffordable and he stopped.

 

OFF ON WALK ON TERRACE AND TO ROOF

 

I want a job, not food parcels or benefits, I want an honest wage.

 

ON ROOF

 

Without money we just have to tap electricity illegally. We have no other choice, you can not possibly live without electricity. We could not pay, now I am even being taken to court. But if I do not have any work,

how can I pay?

 

The water has also been turned off, so we connected it ourselves.

 

AT HOUSE OF NEIGHBOUR WITH HALF PARALYSED HUSBAND

 

Commentary

 

15:17

Alicia takes us to the neighbours, it is even worse there.

 

neighbour, no SVO

 

My husband had a job, he had a stroke, now he is half paralysed, he cannot walk, he cannot do anything.

 

We have no money for the medical bills, transport or rehabilitation.

 

Alicia, no SVO

 

He worked as a taxi driver, and suffered the stroke as they were threatening to lay him off. Look at him lying there now.

 

THE THREE CHIMNEYS

 

SVO – Alicia Belardinelli

 

These three chimneys stood in the middle of the factory. The factory was huge, It covered this entire area. 2000 to 3000 people worked here until it was closed down ten years ago. It has been completely demolished.

 

The chimneys remain as a monument to unemployment.

 

IMF

 

SVO – Luis Cubeddu,  International Monetary Fund

 

The economy worked, but only for the rich.

 

COMMENTARY (on IMF representative at computer)

 

16:34

The IMF representative saw that it was not good and he made a decision.

 

Luis Cubeddu, International Monetary Fund – without SVO

 

Maybe wage reductions were necessary after all.

 

 

ROSARIO RECOVERED FACTORIES

 

COMMENTARY (read almost immediately)

 

16:45

The Argentine employees are trying to find alternative solutions.

 

JosŽ Abelli in car

 

SVO – JosŽ Abelli, Movement recovered factories

 

By recovering and managing the companies ourselves we want to avoid ending up with a marginal existence, and we also want to work on a more equal distribution of incomes.

 

METALLURGIC FACTORY

 

Commentary

 

17:09

And this is working more and more, as we can see in a small metallurgic company where we have an appointment with the manager.

 

Omar Pucciano - no SVO

 

I do not feel like a manager, more like a worker who can make the factory grow.

 

Commentary

 

17:27

In 2000, the owners closed this company, it is bankrupt. The severance pay for the ten employees was the machinery and they set up their own company.

 

SVO - Omar Pucciano

 

In the beginning we hardly earned anything. Our families had to support us. Later on we earned 10 Euros per week, then 15, 25 and now 40 Euros per week. And that will go up even more. Everybody makes the same.

 

(pause)

 

We hold general meetings, not for day-to-day decisions, that would be too complicated, but we do take the major decisions together.

 

JosŽ Abelli in car

 

SVO – JosŽ Abelli, Movement recovered factories

 

We have a slogan: occupy, offer resistance and produce. Why do we have to occupy companies?

 

If we do not do it, the managers will ransack the company, and once we want to start producing again, there is nothing left.

 

PASTA COMPANY

 

COMMENTARY

 

18:45

This company is now also a cooperative. It went into liquidation in 2000. The employees lost their jobs, did not get a severance pay or benefits. Their only way out was to lay their hands on the machines themselves.

 

SVO - Omar  Caceres, Manager pasta cooperative

 

This was difficult because they wanted to sell the machines. For two months we kept watch day

and night to prevent that from happening.

 

Commentary

 

19:12

The employees-owners have a different approach. Two people handle the accounting and administration, it used to be twelve. And they discovered that the former manager and the owners did pocket a lot of money.

 

SVO - Jorge Aguilera, Accountant

 

The manager earned twelve times more than us. And every week, each of the three owners took

a thousand Euros or more out of the cash register.

 

(cook OFF)

 

This will be a vegetable ravioli.

 

SVO - Omar Caceres, Manager pasta cooperative

 

We earn the same as before. The difference is that we work for ourselves, we have social security and we can rest easy at night, because we know that we will still have a job to go back to the next day.

 

SVO - Jorge Aguilera, Accountant

 

The devaluation of December 2001 was a disaster for us. The price of our staple product, flour,

increased fourfold.

 

 

ARGENTINA BIGGEST FOOD PRODUCER AND HUNGRY NEVERTHELESS

 

Commentary (read at end of pan)

 

20:33

The price explosion is odd, because all the grain comes from this country. Soya, wheat, not a single other country produces as much food per inhabitant as Argentina, especially grain. The large landowners sell almost everything to other countries.

 

SVO – JosŽ Abelli

 

This is the grain exchange of Rosario. Every year, seven billion Euros of grain is sold here.

 

Commentary (from second shot)

 

21:07

And so thousands of full lorries and the few still moving trains transport all that grain to Rosario, where it ends up in enormous silos on the banks of the river Parana, and from there onto a boat to Europe and other countries. The 37 million Argentines who also want to eat just have to pay the same high dollar price.

 

SVO – JosŽ Abelli, Movement recovered factories

 

Argentina grows food for three hundred million people. Paradoxically and tragically this is a society with twenty million poor people ten million of which are going hungry.

 

TANGO SINGING

 

SVO – Irma Guevara

 

This hurts me, it cuts me to the quick. Because if this is the first world, then where is it?

 

ROSARIO – NEIGHBOURHOOD IRMA

 

SVO - Irma Guevara

 

We cook three times a week for the children and the elderly. There is a real need and it is constantly getting worse. There is malnutrition, not so much here, but there are undernourished children. In a country that produces milk, basic nutrition for children, the milk is extremely expensive, milk is unaffordable.

 

old woman – no SVO

 

My daughter is unemployed, so is her husband. So I come here for food. With her monthly allowance of 45 Euros the daughter can only pay the rent.

 

old man – no SVO

 

This is a meal for two.

 

Commentary

 

23:24

Irma started up her soup kitchen after the explosion of popular fury in which thirty-three demonstrators were shot dead and during which her neighbourhood was also in a state of uproar.

 

SVO – Irma Guevara

 

That 19th of December 2001, when there were so many casualties in our country, I went round the neighbourhood with a neighbour to convince the young people not to plunder or steal, because our shopkeepers work hard too.

 

mother – no SVO

 

We need that. This way I can at least give my children a substantial meal three times a week.

 

grandmother – no SVO

 

Sometimes I do not eat anything so that I can give them something to eat. What else can we do? We do what we can.

 

 

WORLD BANK

 

COMMENTARY (on WB building and aerial shot)

 

24:28

High above the misery, high above the tumult in the streets, the World Bank is defending its approach, not to the crisis, but to the social unrest.

 

SVO – Axel Van Trotsenburg, Manager World Bank

 

We fund the biggest benefits programme. Unemployed heads of households receive 45 Euros per month. We are talking about 1.9 million households. This is central to calming the social unrest.

 

 

DEMONSTRATION LILIANA AND MADRES

 

Commentary  (read at second shot)

 

25:03

27 years after the coup. Just like every year the victims are commemorated.

 

(demonstrators)

 

Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the people embrace you.

 

SVO - Liliana Galeano (place on second subtitle)

 

(OFF) My father was killed during the dictatorship. He worked for the telephone company, he was a montonero, which was the armed resistance in 1976.

 

 

LA MATANZA 2

 

Liliana Galeano - OFF - no SVO

 

The poorest are looking for a way out to be able to live, and for them occupying the land is an alternative.

 

COMMENTARY

 

26:29

When Liliana occupied this land with a hundred families this was all still countryside.

 

Liliana Galeano - no SVO

 

Together we built 160 houses here. We have lived here for five years now.

 

COMMENTARY

 

26:46

In order to make their neighbourhood habitable this young community has to take its own initiatives, take care of its own water, electricity, and a bakery.

 

baker – no SVO

 

We used to bake the bread over there, in that clay oven. Now we want to be able to work better.

 

Liliana Galeano - no SVO

 

We want to buy new machines for the bakery and a new oven

 

GATHERING

 

SVO – Anna Osores

 

When we first moved here it was very hard, we had nothing, no roads, no electricity, no water, nothing. We have learned to share here.

 

man OFF – no SVO

 

Since I became unemployed, I have gotten to know many other unemployed. This has helped me a great deal.

 

man continued

 

SVO – Hugo Allala

 

This was all new for me, I did not know about these sorts of social movements. A month later I helped block

the road for the first time.

 

Liliana – no SVO

 

We do not want any more undernourished children here. Our children cannot be allowed to die.

 

 

CUSTER

 

OFF Custer

 

That mural is a symbol of our struggle.

 

Commentary (read immediately after quote)

 

28:30 Carlos Custer, from an Argentine government trade union, dreams of an efficient government as it only exists in this painting. He has lived to see it all, the dictatorship and the total opening up of the Argentine economy.

 

SVO – Carlos Custer,   Government trade union

 

Neoliberalism with its promise of modernisation and prosperity and privatisation as the countryÕs future, has made this rich country, which was a welfare state, a country filled with poverty and social exclusion, and has done so largely under the protection of the IMF and World Bank who were the 'teachers' of this policy.

 

 

LA CAVA

 

SVO - Marcos Cianni

 

Here we are walking in a typically middle class neighbourhood, with blue-collar workers, traders and white-collar workers. It is these people who are now beginning to have a hard time. But they do have a number of services left, they are hanging on to them, they are on the verge of losing them. But they still have asphalt roads, basic services, telephone, access to education, they live in better conditions. This is where the most

marginal part of the neighbourhood starts, where the poorest live, those who are excluded most.

 

Commentary

 

30:23

In Marcos and AnaLIaÕs home nobody has a job. They are studying to become teachers and they work as volunteers in this La Cava neighbourhood, the pit.

 

OFF Analia

 

14,000 to 16,000 people live in this slum on 16 hectares.

older woman, piquetera – no SVO

 

We have blocked the road, we wanted aprons for the school children, but the council is not giving anything. I worked for the council for five months and was not paid. So I joined the street pickets, just like Marcos did.

 

****************************************

 

All prices have gone up. Milk has doubled in price, those who look carefully will pay even double of that. The same goes for sugar. Meat is very expensive. For one Euro you only get three tiny pieces.

 

SVO - Marcos Cianni

 

We are arriving at the refectory built by the community. Children are fed here, there are extra courses for the children, grown-ups are learning to read and there are cultural activities.

 

SVO - Analia Pecchinenda

 

We can tell that they are undernourished from their length and their weight, those are not normal measurements for their age, and they are lagging behind in their intellectual development. We notice that when teaching them.

 

OFF Marcos Cianni – no SVO

 

This is where the La Cava neighbourhood stops and the residential neighbourhood starts. As we can see they are divided by a wall, like our entire society.

 

Analia Pecchinenda – no SVO

 

Throughout the years this wall just kept growing higher, first only the cement wall, then barbed wire was added, and finally a live wire

 

 

RICH FENCED OFF NEIGHBOURHOOD

 

Commentary (begin on terrace shot with Julia in the picture)

 

33:21 We are meeting up with Julia, she lives in the familyÕs country house, in a vast area where a lot of Argentine showbiz stars also live.

 

SVO - Julia Pontieri

 

This entire area is fenced off, and there are many watch towers.

 

*****************************

 

You can leave the doors open and the keys in the car. There is also a school and a supermarket here. If you do not want to, you do not even have to leave the condominium.

 

Commentary

 

33:57

However, we do leave the San Diego Country Club and go look for the real world again.

 

 

MALLIMACI

 

COMMENTARY

 

34:08

We have an appointment at the public university, education there is free, more than three hundred thousand students are benefiting from it. However, it is unclear how much longer, because there is not a lot of money left. // 34:20 Professor Mallimaci (MALLIMATSCHI) tells us how big the gap really is.

 

SVO – Fortunato Mallimaci,    Sociology professor

 

In 1973-74 the poorest 10 percent of Argentina were seven times poorer than the richest 10 percent. As a result Argentina had a large middle class. Today that proportion between poor and rich is 1 to 43. So the wage gap has grown immensely.

 

 

RETIRED PEOPLE DANCE THE TANGO

 

Commentary

 

35:09

Buenos Aires has plenty of social community centres for retired people.

 

SVO - Blanca Denapole

 

Now the people do not just come here for the social contact but mainly because their meagre pension

is not enough for them to live off.

 

SVO - Hortensia Castro

 

After having worked my entire life, I have to come here to eat.

 

(OFF)

They give us breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea here.

 

************************************

 

I have been retired since 1983 and have a pension of 45 Euros. I started working when I was 14.

 

SVO - Luis Rodriguez

 

Of all the Latin-American countries, I think we have enjoyed the best life, for many years, and now it is our turn to live in misery.

 

**********************************

 

We are the senior citizens, I am 72, we are abandoned and have no defence.

 

SVO – Carlos Custer    Government trade union

 

Even the basic pension has now been privatised, your old-age income, which is the result of many yearsÕ work.

 

Commentary

36:30

These privatised pension funds have many debts. The Argentines are no longer sure that they will get a pension at all, however small, after all there is no government guarantee anymore.

 

 

TANGO SINGING

 

SVO - Irma Guevara

 

Everybody feels down we have to watch every single Euro They sold our gold and our dignity. They continue to surprise us.

 

 

PRIVATISATIONS

 

SVO – Fortunato Mallimaci     Sociology professor

 

Argentina is the only country in Latin-America that carried out such wild privatisations, everything is gone.

 

 

ROSARIO - STATION WITHOUT TRAINS

 

Commentary

 

37:02

Shipping, oil, all utilities even the post has been privatised, with at times unfathomable consequences. Rosario is a city of millions, bigger than Brussels. There is a train station, but no trains leave from here anymore.

 

SVO – JosŽ Abelli,      Movement recovered factories

 

At the start of the previous century, Argentina had already built an extensive network of railways that ran through the country from north to south. In the nineties, under presidents Menem and Cavallo, almost all railway lines disappeared overnight. A couple of lines were privatised, they laid off 140,000 workers who were never to find a job again in the labour market.

 

Commentary

 

37:52

All transport, of passengers and freight, between ArgentinaÕs cities now has to be done over road.

 

JosŽ Abelli, Movement recovered factories – no SVO

 

A number of (near) monopolies benefited from the privatisation, the company that controls the toll collection

on the motorways, the lorry manufacturers, the oil companies and tyre manufacturers.

 

JosŽ Abelli, Movement recovered factories – no SVO

 

There is not a single rich country that has destroyed its railways like Argentina has. This is completely irrational.

 

 

THE TRAINS OF BUENOS AIRES

 

JosŽ Abelli, Movement recovered factories – no SVO

OFF on train in Buenos Aires

 

The only thing that remains is passenger transport in Buenos Aires.

 

Train passenger on moving train – no SVO

 

Everything degenerated, the seats, windows were missing, it was extremely filthy, very unsafe as well. 20 days ago a lot started to improve owing to a legal enforcement order.

 

Train passenger on stationary train – no SVO

 

No, I do not have windows, but I get a lot of fresh air.

 

*********

 

It is unsafe, nobody ever cleans, windows are missing, it is extremely cold in winter.

 

Other train passenger on stationary train – no SVO

 

It is dreadful, there are no windows even. When it rains you have to take shelter in the aisle.

 

MOVING TRAIN

 

SVO – Luis Cubeddu,  International Monetary Fund

 

Well-executed and well thought-out privatisations are beneficial. Some privatisations in Argentina have not been a success, the railways are an example of that.

 

MOVING TRAIN

 

SVO - Carlos Custer,    Government trade union

 

Not only has the train been privatised the fares have also gone up. However, the amount of subsidies paid by the state is the same as the loss of the former state enterprise. So, the state continues to grant almost

one million Euros in subsidies every single day so as to be able to say that the train has been privatised.

 

MOVING TRAIN

 

Luis Cubeddu, International Monetary Fund - no SVO

 

It is not important whether these companies are private or state-owned, what is important though is that they function well and provide the required service.

 

 

EDUCATION

 

COMMENTARY (read from second shot)

 

40:51

The crisis can also be felt in education, many young people drop out of school early. And the so-called better public schools, like this one, suddenly see pupils emerge from the private schools that have become unaffordable for their parents. //

The teachers themselves are underpaid.

 

SVO -   Roberto Caseros, Head teacher

 

Now a teacher earns 100 Euros per month, of course you cannot live on that. That is how the taxi-teacher

phenomenon came about. They work from 7 oÕclock in the morning and finish at 11 in the evening, in very different schools.

 

COMMENTARY (read almost immediately)

 

41:35

As is the case for us, most of the teachers are female. And now there is often an unemployed husband at home. Our teachersÕ wages are often the sole source of income for the family.

 

 

HEALTHCARE

 

COMMENTARY (read after second shot)

 

41:52

Public hospitals still exist, but they are beginning to have a hard time, both the small and the big ones : there is hardly any money and there are many more people, namely all those who used to be able to afford a private clinic.

 

SVO - Horacio Tur,      Physician

 

That is because people lost their social security due to unemployment.

 

SVO  - Abelardo Erausquin      Neurologist

 

We see the diseases of poverty reappear, malnutrition, tuberculosis caused by poor living conditions and a shortage of potable water.

 

(Horacio Tur)

 

The equipment has become three to four times more expensive.

 

(Abelardo Erausquin)

 

We are talking about basic necessities like syringes and gloves, both are imported.

 

(Horacio Tur)

 

As a result, the healthcare budget is insufficient.

 

 

LARGE DEMONSTRATION

 

COMMENTARY (on image large demonstration)

 

43:06

The Argentine politicians are not solving the problems, and the new social movements of the so-called piqueteros, and born again trade unions are still too weak for the time being to turn the tide. They have thought about a solution already though.

 

SVO - Claudio Lozano

           

What should happen at economic level? A much better distribution of incomes, creating space for

Argentine companies, and for that purpose our political democracy should function well.

 

IMAGE DEMONSTRATION (with Lila and Marcos amongst others)

 

SVO – Fortunato Mallimaci     Sociology professor

 

(beginning is OFF)

 

Wages have to increase, if not even wage earners are poor. The government should redistribute wealth

more fairly. If the wages go up, poverty will be cut by half.

 

 

STUDENTS

 

Commentary

 

43:58

The professor believes in it, his students are less convinced.

 

(female student)

To be honest, I do not see a great future for me here,

 

(student)

The future of my country is uncertain, there is very little work.

 

(student)

My future here, fantastic.

 

(female student)

I would like to leave the country, just like many of my fellow students.

 

(student who then walks away)

If you take a gloomy view of things, you have to leave. But I am staying.

 

Sorry, but I have to go to class.

 

 

ITALIAN EMBASSY

 

Commentary (read after three to four seconds)

 

44:39

The next day.  Just like every single morning, at the crack of dawn there are long queues in front of the Italian embassy.//

Argentines of Italian origin are there to pick up a passport.

 

various interviews - no SVOs

 

I want to go to Italy to work, to improve my social life.

 

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It is going bad, it is a magnificent country, It hurts me to leave but life is not like it used to be anymore.

 

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The country is a heap of rubble and it is constantly getting worse.

 

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Coffee, coffee with milk, Cafe latte.

 

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All our political leaders have failed at every level.

 

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I have to be selfish. I have to think of my future and that of my children.

 

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If it is this bad, you leave.

 

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Otherwise you grow old, and nothing changes.

 

 

TANGO

 

CREDIT TITLES

 

report : Dirk Barrez

photography : Jan Van Bilsen

sound : Luis Lopez

editing & mixing : Gert Van den Cruijce  - ITP

research and interpreting: Natasha Casteleyn

 

production : Jessie Van Couwenberghe and IIWE

in cooperation with the International Institute for WorkersÕ Education