
Argentina's Economic Collapse
Argentina's economy collapses in 2001, and Fernando Solanas traces how it got there, following two decades of neo-liberal policy that privatized state industries, opened the country to foreign capital, and pegged the peso to the dollar until the whole structure broke. Poverty climbs to 57.5 percent as savings accounts are frozen and the middle class watches its money disappear overnight. Solanas names names: Citibank, Credit Suisse, and JP Morgan appear as conduits for money laundering and capital flight, while foreign corporations buy up state assets at a fraction of their worth. The film moves between archival footage of the banking freeze, street protests, and interviews with economists and officials who watched the policies get written and implemented. Malnutrition and preventable deaths follow directly from the collapse, and Solanas draws a straight line from IMF-backed reforms to hospital wards and empty pantries. It plays less like a financial post-mortem than an indictment, built on the premise that the crisis was engineered, not accidental.