The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 191 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of last resort to national governments, and a leading supporter of exchange-rate stability. Its stated mission is "working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world."
The Terrorist is an Indian Tamil-language film directed by Santosh Sivan. The film portrays a period in the life of a 19-year-old woman, Malli, sent to assassinate a leader in South Asia through a suicide bombing. It stars Dharker, K. Krishna and Sonu Sisupal. Released in 1998, the film was shot in 15 days, with natural lighting, on a shoestring budget of ₹25 lakh.
Roger Joseph Ebert was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He was the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. Ebert was known for his intimate, Midwestern writing style and critical views informed by values of populism and humanism. Writing in a prose style intended to be entertaining and direct, he made sophisticated cinematic and analytical ideas more accessible to non-specialist audiences. Ebert endorsed foreign and independent films he believed would be appreciated by mainstream viewers, championing filmmakers like Werner Herzog, Errol Morris and Spike Lee, as well as Martin Scorsese, whose first published review he wrote. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times said Ebert "was without question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic," and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called him "the best-known film critic in America." Per The New York Times, "The force and grace of his opinions propelled film criticism into the mainstream of American culture. Not only did he advise moviegoers about what to see, but also how to think about what they saw."
American Movie is a 1999 American documentary film directed by Chris Smith, produced by Smith and Sarah Price, and edited by Jun Diaz and Barry Poltermann.
Lewis Gilbert was an English film director, producer and screenwriter who directed more than 40 films during six decades; among them such varied titles as Reach for the Sky (1956), Sink the Bismarck! (1960), Alfie (1966), Educating Rita (1983) and Shirley Valentine (1989), as well as three James Bond films: You Only Live Twice (1967), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979).
Better Luck Tomorrow is a 2002 American independent crime drama film directed by Justin Lin. The film is about Asian American overachievers who become bored with their lives and enter a world of petty crime and material excess. Better Luck Tomorrow's cast include Parry Shen, Jason Tobin, Sung Kang, Roger Fan, and John Cho. The film tells a fictional story of youth violence, drawing inspiration from several sources, including the Columbine shootings and the murder of Stuart Tay, a teenager from Orange County, California.
Structural adjustment programs (SAPs) consist of loans provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) to countries that experience economic crises. Their stated purpose is to adjust the country's economic structure, improve international competitiveness, and restore its balance of payments.
Allan Hope CD, better known as Mutabaruka, is a Jamaican Rastafari dub poet, musician, actor, educator, and talk-show host, who developed two of Jamaica's most popular radio programmes, The Cutting Edge and Steppin' Razor. His name comes from the Rwandan language and translates as "one who is always victorious". His themes include politics, culture, Black liberation, social oppression, discrimination, poverty, racism, sexism, and religion.
American Splendor is a 2003 American biographical comedy drama film written and directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini. The film, which chronicles the life of comic book writer Harvey Pekar, is a hybrid production featuring live actors, documentary, and animation. It is based on the 1976–2008 comic book series of the same name written by Pekar and the 1994 graphic novel Our Cancer Year written by Pekar and Joyce Brabner. The film stars Paul Giamatti as Pekar and Hope Davis as Brabner. It also features appearances from Pekar and Brabner themselves, who discuss their lives, the comic books, and how it feels to be depicted onscreen by actors.
H-2 Worker is a 1990 documentary film about the exploitation of Jamaican guest workers in Florida's sugar cane industry. It was directed by Stephanie Black, and won the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for documentaries in the 1990 festival. It was shot in Belle Glade, Clewiston, and Okeelanta, Florida, as well as Jamaica and includes cane fields and worker camps owned by US Sugar Corporation and the Okeelanta Corporation.
The Jamaican Free Zones are a government free trade zone initiative in Jamaica. Designed to encourage foreign investment and international trade, businesses operating within these zones have no tax on their profits, and are exempted from customs duties on imports and exports and import licensing requirements. They must export 85 percent of their products outside the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
Good Hair is a 2009 American documentary film directed by Jeff Stilson and produced by Chris Rock Productions and HBO Films, starring and narrated by comedian Chris Rock. Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2009, Good Hair had a limited release to theaters in the United States by Roadside Attractions on October 9, 2009, and opened across the country on October 23.
Inside Job is a 2010 American documentary film, directed by Charles Ferguson, about the 2007–2008 financial crisis. Ferguson, who began researching in 2008, said the film is about "the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption", amongst them conflicts of interest of academic research, which led to improved disclosure standards by the American Economic Association. In five parts, the film explores how changes in the policy environment and banking practices led to the 2007–2008 financial crisis.
Stephanie Black is an American documentary film director and producer. She resides in New York City.
Mark Cousins is an English-born, Northern Irish director and writer. A prolific documentarian, among his best-known works is the 15-hour 2011 documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey.
The Interrupters is a 2011 documentary film, produced by Kartemquin Films, that tells the story of three violence interrupters who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed. It examines a year in which Chicago drew national headlines for violence and murder that plagued the city.
Our Nixon is an all-archival documentary providing a view of the Nixon presidency through the use of Super-8 format home movies filmed by top Nixon aides H.R. Haldeman, Dwight Chapin and John Ehrlichman, combined with other historical material such as interviews, oral histories and news clips. It was directed by Penny Lane.
Mulberry Child is a 2011 documentary film that was written and directed by Susan Morgan Cooper, based on the book by the same name by Jian Ping. It had its world premiere on October 16, 2011 at the Heartland Film Festival and features Jacqueline Bisset as the movie's narrator.
The Harder They Come is a 1972 Jamaican crime film directed by Perry Henzell and co-written by Trevor D. Rhone, and starring Jimmy Cliff. The film is most famous for its reggae soundtrack that is said to have "brought reggae to the world".
Icarus is a 2017 American documentary film by Bryan Fogel. It was an initial attempt by Fogel to expose the inadequacy of existing policies and procedures to catch athletes who use banned performance-enhancing substances. But later, the project shifted its focus after pressures related to the World Anti-Doping Agency's investigation of doping in Russia led Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory and one of Fogel's primary advisors, to flee Russia and become a whistleblower.
