Poor Us: an animated history
Do we know what poverty is? (58mins)
Long Film
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And when the Lamb opened the seventh seal,
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there was in heaven a silence
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which lasted about the space of half an hour.
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And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets
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prepared themselves to sound.
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- Who are you?
- I am Death.
If we want to make poverty history, we need to understand the history of poverty. A funny and sinister animated odyssey through time. Watch the documentary now or download it from our Vimeo channel.
You fall asleep and dream, traveling across centuries and continents. You find the answers to curious questions: did hunter-gatherers have poor relations? Who became poor faster than anyone else in history? And can Karl Marx make tea? But you also look at big questions: what’s lifted people out of poverty and how? Is there a formula that would work again? Is poverty an “engine of the system” and a great driver of progress – or a terrible by-product of inequality?
Find out more about measuring poverty and how poverty where you live compares with the rest of the world.
Watch Love & Rubbish, a film about what's it like growing up poor today, and Stealing Africa, a look at resource exploitation in Zambia.
Share the trailer with a friend. Tell us what you think. Can we make poverty history or will it always be with us?
Directed by: Ben Lewis
Produced by: Femke Volting & Bruno Felix
Production company: Steps International & Submarine Pictures