Carles Bosch is an Academy Oscar® Award nominee. 

 

The first part of the film explains how the welfare state was born in Europe and how it manages to ensure a certain degree of equality in a world where the weak must be protected from a greedy few.

 

The second part – more upbeat – the plot of the film follows the daily life of different actors involved in the struggle to uphold the idea of equality: not allowing society to go back to where it was in the thirties of the last century where inequality and social injustice provoke social unrest with unpredictable consequences.

 

It is in this second part where Barcelona Consensus is being introduced as an intercultural alternative to neoliberal globalization. It is explained how we need a new social, political and economic framework to achieve a livable world for all. Barcelona Consensus is a call to citizen action. It is also a commitment to act and help creating this better world.

 

El futur era de tots was shot in different parts of Catalonia, with special emphasis on the neighborhood Roquetes, which still keeps the memory of the time of the sixties and seventies alive, where there was nothing of what we call a welfare state.

 

Besides, the documentary takes us to Britain and Sweden, where the austerity policies have decreased the benefits of the welfare state guaranteed to its citizens and further also to Washington, the capital of the country with the worst statistics regarding the distribution of wealth – and strangely still called the land of opportunities. Finally, “el futur era de tots”  show us the other side of the coin: Brazil.

 

It’s a journey from the beginning of 15M movement to the latest austerity measures by the European governments. It’s an analysis which raises awareness, and gratitude towards what we have and want ot achieve and finally it proves to us that we still have the power to change things and prevent the kind of future which resembles the past which we don’t want to come back.

 

The documentary unfortunately is only available in Catalan so far. Click on the image to watch the film.

 

This text has been originaly posted at barcelonaconsensus.org