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UNITED NATIONS CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT FUND Microfinance |
Issue 6 / October 2004 |
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News | Interview with Producer Sterling VanWagenen on His New Film "Small Fortunes: Microcredit and the Future of Poverty" Premiere to Be Featured at the Launch of the Year at UN Headquarters
Questions for Sterling Van Wagenen, producer of Small Fortunes: Microcredit and the Future of Poverty, that will premiere at the launch of the Year of Microcredit 2005 at UN Headquarters in New York on 18 November 2004. 1. To produce this film on the history of microfinance and the transformation of how people look at poverty and poor people, you traveled all over the world to places like India, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Kenya. Is there one interview that stands out as the most memorable? Two, actually. Our interview with Mohammed Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, was memorable because of Yunus’ remarkable optimism in the face of extraordinarily difficult conditions in Bangladesh. His unshakable belief in the value and capacity of individuals, no matter how poor or “disadvantaged” was inspiring. Stanley Fischer of Citigroup was memorable because of his remarkable combination of pragmatism and compassion—qualities one rarely finds balanced so well in very successful business executives. 2. What inspired you to tackle this subject? The work of Mike Murray, CEO of Unitus, a Microcredit accelerator, and Warner Woodworth at the Center for Economic Self-Reliance at Brigham Young University. Both men are thinking outside the box in terms of how to address poverty in ways that take the realities of human nature into account. If capitalism really is the best economic system, it should be able to address the problems of the world’s poor people more effectively than charitable giving. Microcredit seems like a credible answer to that challenge. 3. As co-founder of the Sundance Film Festival that celebrates and nurtures independent films, what commonalities do you see with the filmmakers you have worked with and the people you have met over the past year producing “Small Fortunes”? Initiative and creativity. Independent filmmakers must rely on both those qualities because they usually don’t have money to throw at problems—solutions must be found in others ways. Their determination and creativity are the qualities that make the uniqueness of independent films possible. It’s the same with many microcredit borrowers. Their determination to get their families out of poverty by accessing credit requires tremendous commitment and often yields microbusinesses that are extraordinary in their creativity and response to market opportunities. 4. What similarities and differences do you see among microfinance clients and across regions? At a certain level, the similarities, I think, are easier to identify than the differences. As I note above, initiative and creativity are remarkably common, even among what we would call the “poorest of the poor.” Women across all the countries we visited are focused on getting out of poverty by making it possible for their children to get an education. Also, the rates of repayment, averaging above 90%, are consistent in all the countries we visited, especially among women borrowers. 5. In what ways has the filmmaking process changed your perspectives on microfinance? Did you go into this project with certain perceptions that changed over the period of your work? My perspective has changed dramatically, especially in regard to my perception of poverty. I’ve made many films in various parts of the world. While working on the microcredit film, I have come to realize that my view of the poor was conditioned by what one might call the “white man’s tears.” That is to say, a sense of compassion and guilt that saw charity as the solution to world poverty, charity that should be forthcoming from the developed countries. My sense of condescension has taken a beating while working on the microcredit film, and I am seeing for the first time the inherent capacity of poor people to make their own way but only if the playing field can be leveled in terms of economic opportunity. 6. Was there something you wanted to include in the film but could not or an aspect of microfinance that you wish you had more time to explore? The objective of the film is to give American television viewers a sense of who the microborrowers are and why Microcredit is having such a remarkable impact in many countries. I wish we could have spent more time on the larger policy issues microcredit is raising on a country-by-country basis, and particularly how commercial capital markets and microcredit institutions are finding ways of integrating their mutual interests. 7. Can you tell us a little bit about your upcoming projects? I’m working on a film on John
Winthrop and Roger Williams and the two views of religion and its relationship
to government inherent in their conflict in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
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