MONEY (3 x 60’)
BBC, 2011
““Engle’s gentle probing, her focus on the detail of people’s lives and her refusal
to pass judgment is reminiscent of the work of Studs Terkel – and admiration
doesn’t come much higher than that”
The Times”
This series is an intimate investigation into our personal attitudes to money, exploring what we feel and believe about money. Each stand-alone film explores a different theme – focusing on people who dedicate their lives to getting rich, on how money affects our personal relationships and on how people choose to spend their money.
WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE?
Ep 1 is about our desire to accumulate wealth and explores the extraordinary world of wealth trainers and their clients. It documents the influence of American wealth gurus such as Robert Kiyosaki, author of ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’, and T.Harv Eker, who teaches his followers to have ‘a millionaire mind’. The film follows several British disciples of this money-making belief system, as they attend wealth seminars in an attempt to get rich.
COUPLES
Ep 2 examines what money represents within a relationship. How do couples agree on their financial priorities and who gets to make the financial decisions? Do the rich argue less about money than the poor? The couples featured are of different ages and social classes and come from different parts of the country. The film explores in each case the extent to which money is a source of conflict for couples but also the ways in which it oils the wheels of our intimate relationships.
FORTY GRAND
Ep 3 takes a particular sum of money as its starting point. Forty thousand pounds is a typical British income for a household where two adults are in full-time work. This is a film about how we choose to spend our money and about people’s values and priorities in life. The film features a socially diverse set of households who all live on this same net amount of money annually, revealing very different life situations as well as very different value systems.
PRESS
““Jaw-dropping and riveting”
The Daily Mail”
““I love Engle’s films. A superb interviewer, death by quotation is her speciality. She lets people talk and they damn themselves (or not, if they happen to be decent).”
The New Statesman”
“ “I turned to the first episode of Money mainly because of the track record of producer/director Vanessa Engle. She likes big, one-word titles for her elegant and slyly clever series and Women, Jews and Lefties were terribly well done and surprising. As was the case, delightfully, here”
The Observer”
““Vanessa Engle’s excellent series is a fine showcase for her skills as an interviewer. Tonight she teases out honest opinions and exposes the couples’ dynamic with curiosity, but without prurience. It’s highly impressive. Eye-opening and very well-judged”
Time Out”
““What do the choices people make about money tell us about them? So very much, as director Vanessa Engle makes delightfully clear. A film about values rather than prices, about worth rather than cost – an absolute gem at any price”
The Telegraph”
““The pleasure and the power of Engle’s programme lay in the extraordinary ordinariness of the participants and the honesty with which she probed and they spoke. There wasn’t a sensationalist moment anywhere. It was brilliant, and most disconcerting”
The Guardian”
CREDITS
Producer/director: VANESSA ENGLE
Camera: JOHANN PERRY
Sound: MARC HATCH
Assistant producer: TARA NOLAN, SAMANTHA WILLIAMS, TARA O’KELLY
Film editor: JAN CHOLAWO, JOANNA CRICKMAY
Executive producer: NICK MIRSKY
AWARDS
Shortlisted for the 2012 Grierson award for Best Documentary Series
