The Globalization Tapes

Shot by Indonesian workers using their own suppressed history as a case study, this film traces the development of contemporary globalization from its roots in colonialism. Through chilling first-hand accounts, hilarious improvised interventions, collective debate and archival collage, "The Globalization Tapes" exposes the devastating role of militarism and repression in building the "global economy", and explores the relationships between trade, third-world debt, and international institutions like the IMF and the World Trade Organization.
A grandfather demonstrates his favored technique of holding union activists upside down in flooded fields. Plantation workers stage a satirical commercial for the pesticide that poisons them. The filmmakers pose as World Bank agents with brutal and absurd offers to 'develop' local businesses.
The Globalization Tapes is a testament to the intelligence, humor, integrity and creativity of its makers and their community.
"If we are united in our struggle against worker oppression, united in our search for truth amidst lies, united for a truly participatory democratic economic system, the possibilities are only limited by our courage, our determination, and our capacity to imagine." - Su Karman, narrator and President of the Independent Plantation Workers' Union of Sumatra.