Stephanie Black’s exposé ‘devastating, artful & intelligent’

The hugs and kisses came from all quarters for Stephanie Black following the July 29 premiere of Life And Debt, at the Island Life Cinema in Kingston. After weeks of nail-biting expectation, the pencil-slim filmmaker was relieved that her documentary on the effect globalisation has had on Jamaica, got the thumbs-up.

“I think everybody likes it,” said Black, grinning from ear -to-ear.

“After the controversy with H-2 Worker I was hoping things would be better this time.” H-2 Worker was Black’s first film and like Life And Debt it involved the Jamaican worker. Instead of Free Zone workers and embattled farmers, H-2 Worker explored the poor working conditions of indentured workers in the United States.

Both films brought to light steps the average Jamaican is prepared to take to make their dollar stretch. But while only government officials viewed H-2 Worker, Jamaicans have an opportunity to see Life And Debt which is scheduled to start a one-week run in local theatres on Wednesday.

They will see what disadvantages a country with a ravaged economy holds for its people and the consequences Third World countries suffer when they are aligned to giant lending agencies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

Black conceived Life And Debt in the early 1990s while she was visiting Jamaica which at the time still had an association with the IMF.

“Everyday you would read in the paper about how another benchmark had been met so they (the IMF) would be holding back certain tracks of the money,” Black told All Woman. “And I was thinking ‘there are never any headline stories like this in New York’. That’s because I’m not living in a country that’s under an IMF programme.”

It would take another seven years before Black could rustle up funds from organisations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts to start work on Life And Debt. The project — which features the late Jamaica prime minister, Michael Manley, IMF officials and Jamaican farmers and labourers — transcends the talking heads documentary and gives an indepth look into the trials farmers face competing against inferior goods from the US.

Female Free Zone workers, who are considered Jamaica’s equivalent to sweatshop employees in Asia, also speak freely about their inadequate salaries at factories operated by major American companies.

To date, Life And Debt has evoked the passions of human rights groups who have seen it since it opened in New York and Los Angeles in June.

There has also been favourable reviews from publications with strong readership such as the Village Voice which described Life And Debt as “devastating, artful and intelligent”.

That was the type of reaction Black was looking for when she was making the film. “I hope it will catalyse a public evaluation of what’s been done by groups like the IMF,” she stated. “They (the IMF) have to look at some of the policies they are imposing on the Third World and countries that borrow from them.”

H-2 Worker and Life And Debt are a departure from Black’s early work. The older of two children born in New York to a clothes salesman father and a mother who was a book-keeper, Black started out doing a slew of children’s projects including several slots for the long-running Sesame Street. Her link with Jamaica came in the early 1990s when she started directing music videos for reggae acts like Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers.

In fact, Black credits her working with reggae musicians for sensitising her to the economic bind many ordinary Jamaicans encounter on a daily basis.

“A lot of the artistes I work with, the lyrics of their songs are upholding the same values that I have,” she explained. “My music video work is not far from my documentaries, they relate quite closely. If you look closely, Life And Debt is influenced by a music video sensibility.”

For all the great songs that comprise its soundtrack and the narrative from Antiguan writer, Jamaica Kincaid, that breaks in at various intervals, Life And Debt is, above all, Stephanie Black’s exposé on life in countries dependent on the money of bigger countries and large corporations.

“A lot of people think they don’t have the capacity to understand the economics,” she stated. “But when they see the film and see how eloquently the farmers speak and realise that Life And Debt is about a people telling their story.”