Life and Debt is a 2001 American documentary film that examines the economic and social situation in Jamaica, and specifically how the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank's structural adjustment policies have impacted the island.
Direction
Black's surgical juxtaposition of paradise and poverty.
Editing
Tourist ads bleeding into banana plantation footage — devastating.
Writing
Kincaid's narration: poetic, acidic, unforgettable.
Director
Stephanie Black
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Jamaica Kincaid's narration adapts her essay 'A Small Place,' written as an open letter to tourists.
The film's central argument — that IMF structural adjustment programs function as modern colonialism — became foundational to anti-globalization discourse in the 2000s.
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