original title:
Piigs
directed by:
cast:
Noam Chomsky, Yanis Varoufakis, Stephanie Kelton, Warren Mosler, Paul De Grauwe, Erri De Luca, Federico Rampini, Claudia Bonfini
screenplay:
cinematography:
editing:
music:
production:
distribution:
world sales:
country:
Italy
year:
2017
film run:
76'
format:
colour
release date:
27/04/2017
PIIGS is a documentary that challenges prevalent European budgetary policies and the austerity dogma. It does so by bringing in lesser-known facts and evidence that have the effect of ridiculing prevalent European monetary policies and dominant political certainties.
Did you know that the famous god-like Stability and Growth Pact with its 3% deficit limit and theories about critical government debt levels are based on purely invented figures and typing errors in Excel spreadsheet? However, austerity policies keep on dividing the continent into winners and loosers, creating great amount of suffering, particularly in so-called crisis countries. Consequently, the whole European project has become in doubt.
PIIGS is a Southern European take into austerity dogma and states with the voice of prestigious international economists, intellectuals and experts, that the origin of the European debt crisis is not the inadequacy of people in crisis countries but the very foundation of euro itself. Unfortunately people are not immune to bad decision making, and the documentary shows how austerity turns into practice in Rome, focusing on a survival story of a cooperative assisting disabled people.