"Capital in the 21st century", putting the economy at the heart of modern history

"Capital in the 21st Century", by economist Thomas Piketty and New Zealand director Justin Pemberton. © Diaphana Distribution

Text by: Isabelle Chenu Follow

It is a dense and effective documentary. "Capital in the 21st century" provides a better understanding of the mechanisms by which a minority of the world's wealth is captured in the capitalist system.

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Capital in the 21st century  was first a bestseller signed in 2014 by economist Thomas Piketty. With New Zealand director Justin Pemberton, he decided to bring this investigation to the screen of an increasingly savage capitalism, the creator of violent tensions in our contemporary societies. 

It is a tour de force to have successfully transposed the thousand pages of Thomas Piketty's bestseller into a documentary of one hour and forty minutes. Capital in the 21st century mixes archival images, film extracts, interviews with researchers on the big screen. It is a journey that places the economy at the heart of the modern history of our societies. For Thomas Piketty, capitalism is a machine for generating growing inequalities, except when it is regulated by strong state action. 

Migration crisis, legacy of colonialism and slavery, domination, hereditary capture of wealth, corruption of democracies, everything is there, sometimes very densely depicted. We see there the ever greater concentration of property and the inexorable rise of revolts and violence generated by these inequalities.  

1% of the population today has more wealth than the remaining 99%. 

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