Country: Italy
Year: 2000
Duration: 57'
The streets of Dhaka are crowded day and night. The city's many lights make one forget that Bangladesh is a country with millions of people living below the poverty line. The women, in the city and in the villages, are the ones most affected by this drama, for they suffer not only poverty, but cultural and religious oppression as well. Sofia Akhter studies sociology in New Zealand and has recently returned to her homeland to write a thesis on the Grameen Bank, the "bank of the poor people", created thanks to the theories of Professor Muhammed Yunus, who has helped millions of people find social and economic dignity.
"This documentary was made for two reasons: the need to discover whether, above and beyond the statistics, anything has really changed in the lives of women in Bangladesh since the founding of the Grameen Bank, and the desire to continue believing that a dream such as that of professor Yunus can still come true today. But many doubts and questions inexorably arise: is it truly possible to defeat poverty by simply creating a bank for poor people?" (Ilaria Freccia).
Biography
film director
Ilaria Freccia
(Italy) worked as photographer and filmmaker for the experimental company Mabu Mines in New York. She was associate producer of the documentary series The Great Pleasure Hunt directed by Elliott Erwitt for the HBO. She has directed and produced many tv documentaries that have received national and international recognition. After La rivoluzione siamo noi (Arte in Italia 1967/1977), she is currently developing the feature film Wildfire and the episodic series Priceless Gift: The Life and Death of Jane Stanford.
FILMOGRAFIA
La guerra delle bollicine (cm, 1989), Notturno (cm, 1990), Potigai Malai, la dimora degli dei (doc, 1994), Thangam (doc, 1996), Madras Eyes (doc, 1998), L’iniziazione (doc, 1999), Un mondo senza povertà (doc, 2000), Giusto un po’ d’amore (doc, 2002), Padre Pio Express (doc, 2003), Un mondo possibile (doc, cm, 2012), La rivoluzione siamo noi: arte in Italia 1967/1977 (doc, 2020).
Cast
& Credits
Regia, soggetto e sceneggiatura: Ilaria Freccia.
Director of photography: George Bottos.
Editor: Anna Jurasz.
Music: Sergio Gribanovski.
Production company and Italian distribution: Bernadette Carranza per Intesa & Cp, via dei Banchi Vecchi 58, 00186 Roma, Italia, tel. +39-06-6832740, fax +39-06-6832770, e-mail intesacp@tin.it.
Co-production: Raitre, Roma.
Director of photography: George Bottos.
Editor: Anna Jurasz.
Music: Sergio Gribanovski.
Production company and Italian distribution: Bernadette Carranza per Intesa & Cp, via dei Banchi Vecchi 58, 00186 Roma, Italia, tel. +39-06-6832740, fax +39-06-6832770, e-mail intesacp@tin.it.
Co-production: Raitre, Roma.