Synopsis

Whoever pays his debts gets richer, says the proverb. Sometimes, proverbs can be wrong. In the seventies, sub-Saharan countries borrowed millions of dollars in developmental aid. Some of these countries, such as Mali, have already paid back more than seven times the money initially borrowed from rich countries. Nonetheless, the balance of the debt to be paid is still multiplied by a factor of four. The mathematics of finance sometimes work in rather strange ways... Some of the borrowed amounts have even found their way into Swiss bank accounts. The present film - written as an essay in economics in the first person - therefore raises the following question: who is helping whom ? In Bambara, Djourou means "debt" as well as "a rope round your neck". Malians are strangled by a debt crisis and the question is: who holds the rope and why doesn't he release it ? Just like under a palaver tree, this film relates the diverse and often irreconcilable opinions of a Malian minister of finance, an expert in development economics, two Swiss lawyers in charge of finding dictatorship money hidden in Swiss bank accounts, Malian cotton growers, an executive of the IMF, and the ghost of a deposed dictator.

 

Credits

Director and editing: Olivier Zuchuat
Director of photography : Corinne Maury, Olivier Zuchuat
Sound: Makanfing Konate, Gautier Stoll, Frédéric Choffat
Produceurs: Serge Lalou, Virginie Vallat
Director of production: Charlotte Uzu, Bénédicte Félix
Color correction: Eric Salleron
Mix: Stéphane Larrat
Translation: Abdoulaye Diarra
Coproduction: Les Films d’ici, Les Films du Mélangeur, TV10 Angers
avec la participation de TV5, TSR, SVT et du CNC
et le soutien de PROCIREP/ANGOA-AGICOA, CNCD – Opération
11.11.11 (Belgique), du CADTM, de la Communauté Européenne
et de la Fondation Montorge.
France - 2004 - 64 mn - Beta numérique - Couleur / N&B
Language: Français / Bambara
Subtitles: Français, english