Brazil: World Cup Nation
Brazil’s revival, despite the World Cup protests, from 1990s debt and inflation to stability and relative wealth today.
This is a modern economic history of Brazil – and its rise from heavy debt and high inflation in the 1990s to stability and wealth in the new millennium, under influential Worker’s Party President Ignacio Lula da Silva. Its currency is now stable and a favourable trade balance in natural resources with major powers like China makes it now an IMF creditor rather than debtor.
Using archive and interviews in Portuguese and English, the film examines some of the reasons for the country’s difficulties last century – and its subsequent recovery in the past decade. Interviews with former Minister for Social Development, Patrus Ananias, opposition politicians and social/economic commentators describe how, under da Silva, millions of Brazilians were taken out of poverty and a new middle class began to enjoy relative prosperity.
Hosting the World Cup has grown out of this new-found affluence – but so have the protests about the cost of the tournament in relation to the reforms many think are still needed to the country’s infrastructure, health and education.