T-Shirt Travels

A film by Shantha Bloemen

What happens to all those old clothes you bring to the Salvation Army or Goodwill Industries? This comprehensive program is about Third World debt and secondhand clothes. The filmmaker travelled to Zambia and was amazed to find almost everyone wearing Calvin Klein, MTV and James Dean t-shirts!
Huge bales of American secondhand clothing are sold to African importers, putting the African manufacturers out of business. We see a secondhand clothing dealer in Zambia carefully select a bale among dozens, bundled and shipped from abroad. He pays for the used clothing and then transports it by bus ten hours to a market. His meager profits support his entire extended family who subsist in shanty towns miles from the market. Their lives exemplify the poverty plaguing Africa today. They have virtually no possibility of advancing themselves and their children.
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Harvard University Center for International Studies and other experts discuss the history of colonialism, slavery and the depletion of Africa’s natural resources. They draw the connection between this shameful legacy and the current huge debt. As the African governments service their debts according to an IMF/World Bank policy known as "structural adjustment lending," people’s benefits are slashed drastically, resulting in terrible suffering from malnutrition, poor healthcare, inadequate schools and a crumbling infra-structure. Our old t-shirts come with a high price-tag.

A presentation of the Independent Television Service (itvs). Partially funded by the Soros Documentary Fund of the Open Society Institute and the International Foundation for Arts and Culture.

"Highly recommended."
Educational Media Reviews Online
"It is by far the best video I have seen for showing the downside of globalisation for under-developed countries"
Prof. Norman Etherington, University of Western Australia
"As the journey of our old t-shirts illustrates, the world is small and interconnected…Highly recommended."
MC Journal: The Journal of Academic Media Librarianship

Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, 2002
Best Documentary, Human Rights and Justice, Vermont International Film Festival, 2001
Best Documentary, Atlanta Film Festival, 2001
Certificate of Merit, San Francisco International Film Festival, 2001
Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival, 2002
"Through an African Lens" Film Festival, 2002 .

57 min. Video or DVD. Sale $350. Video rental $75.