Poverty, Inc.

How can you compete with people giving stuff away? That is one of the biggest problems for small businesses in developing countries, where aid organizations are undermining markets for food and other products by handing goods out for free. This is just one of several unintended negative consequences of development aid that Poverty, Inc. examines. Several of the interviewees point out that although benefactors might feel good about helping poor people, they’re actually participating in a paternalistic system that perpetuates the poverty. A highly lucrative “poverty industry” has come into being, and it’s paying lots of people lots of money. This documentary touches on many sensitive issues, using animated graphics to clarify the complex material and make a convincing argument about how the system can and must change. Given that Poverty, Inc. is a project of the U.S. organization PovertyCure, founded by director Michael Matheson Miller, the filmmakers themselves are not impartial. In an earlier six-part DVD series, they argued the case for completely overhauling the existing system of development aid. So it’s no coincidence that the visual style is sometimes reminiscent of educational films. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)