Inside Job (2010)

Director: Charles Ferguson
Run time: 120 minutes
Country: USA

Winner of the Oscar for the Best Documentary of 2010, Inside Job is a the first film to expose in depth the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, Inside Job traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia.
[The film argues that] the worst financial crisis since the Depression, which continues to haunt us via Europe's debt problems and global financial stability...was a completely avoidable crisis...and that the progressive deregulation of the financial sector since the 1980s gave rise to an increasingly criminal industry, whose "innovations" [such as credit default swaps] have produced a succession of financial crises...yet nobody has gone to prison, despite fraud that caused trillions of dollars in losses.

(Source: Official film site: http://www.sonyclassics.com/insidejob/)
The film, which is narrated by Academy Award Winner Matt Damon, also questions the integrity of business and economics professors who are paid to sit on corporate boards, serve as consultants to Wall St. firms, and write reports that support the positions of the business community, arguing that such relationships diminish their objectivity and corrupt their mission as educators.

Speakers:

Dr. Jackie Smith
Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh

Dr. Matt Ryan
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Duquesne University