Democracy was on the ballot in Puerto Rico in 2024's historic election, as workers, activists and journalists faced off against a corrupt government and an unelected Oversight Board. Just as in NYC and Detroit before, they fight to regain basic services and end the cycle of debt and austerity.
SYNOPSIS
In THE PEOPLE VS. AUSTERITY, filmmaker Vivian Vázquez Irizarry examines how an unelected Fiscal Control Board in Puerto Rico gutted essential services to pay off Wall Street, in a playbook developed during financial crises in 1970’s New York City and 2013 Detroit. Connected to Puerto Rico by family and culture, Vivian joins journalists, workers and families in Puerto Rico to challenge the island’s all-powerful Board, which was installed by Congress to manage a $130 billion debt.
Since 2016, the Board’s austerity cuts have decimated basic services like education, health and electricity, and half a million Puerto Ricans have fled an economy in freefall. As reporters at the Center for Investigative Reporting (CPI) investigate the Board’s policies, a citizen’s movement to audit the debt builds to demand accountability. But the Board pushes through a controversial deal to privatize the island’s Electric Authority. 3,000 linemen are fired, electric bills skyrocket and the lights go out for millions across the island.
Vivian draws parallels to her New York City childhood, which in 1975 was ruled by one of the country’s first Fiscal Oversight Boards. This fiscal control blueprint was replicated across the country, as in 2013 Detroit, when an unelected Emergency Manager shut off water to 100,000 “undeserving” residents.
As the 2024 election approaches, a new opposition party is on the rise, bringing together every sector of Puerto Rico to challenge the Board’s power, reclaim the Electric Authority for the public good and create a livable future for all.
Director Statement
For me, austerity is personal. It’s shaped my own life, from my family fleeing fires and official neglect in our South Bronx neighborhood when I was a kid, to caring for family in Puerto Rico today. In the last decade I’ve witnessed them struggle with fewer educational opportunities, job losses, terrible health care, poverty and despair. When Hurricane Maria hit in 2017, it was a deadly blow to a place that austerity had already cut to the bone. As a kid I could not fight back against the policies that hurt my family and community, but seeing my mother flee after the storm, I decided to change that. I started connecting the dots on how the austerity policies of the 1970s are still devastating the places and people I love today.
Our film exposes the winners and losers of austerity’s failed promises, and follows water warriors, investigative journalists, electrical workers, and debt activists from Detroit to Puerto Rico in their years-long fight for accountable government and to restore essential services to all. Culminating in Puerto Rico’s historic election this November, this unlikely coalition is building momentum and could finally break the grip of austerity, forging a new path forward out of perpetual debt and impoverishment.
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Director/Producer Vivian Vázquez Irizarry
Co-director/producer Vivian Vázquez Irizarry previously co-directed and produced the feature documentary DECADE OF FIRE (2018), about the fires that destroyed her South Bronx neighborhood in the 1970s. That film premiered at DOCNYC in 2018 and was the audience favorite of Independent Lens 2019 season, and won the Best Documentary Director at the 2019 Newark Film Festival. It screened with over 100 housing and racial justice community groups across the country. VIvian also co-directed the short film DEFENDING YOUR BLOCK, about successful community organizing in the face of displacement. Before filmmaking, Vivian ran educational, GED and college access programs across NYC for decades, including at a Bronx public school. She is a lifelong resident of the Bronx and recently joined the Board of Directors of the Bronx River Alliance, a non-profit group that works to improve and restore the Bronx River corridor.
Director/Producer Gretchen Hildebran
Producer Neyda Martinez is the producer of the documentary films BARTOLO and A CHASM IN CHINATOWN/BIRTH OF AN AMERICAN MUSEUM; DECADE OF FIRE (2018); LUCKY (2013); Co-Executive Producer of the narrative short ACUITZERAMO (HBO), and associate producer for HBO's Habla Now (2020). Neyda helped build national recognition of American Documentary's (AmDoc) acclaimed nonfiction series' POV and AMERICA REFRAMED. A strategic advisor to the Oscar-nominated short documentary, TAKEOVER, she also helmed the national engagement campaigns for PBS' Peabody award-winning series, Latino Americans, and WNYC's podcast "La Brega." Neyda serves on the boards of Women Make Movies and climate justice organization, UPROSE. She is a Fellow of the Sundance Institute Documentary Lab (2022-23) and the New School for Social Research Heilbroner Capitalism Studies (2022-23). She is director of the Media Management at the New School for Social Research and a Sundance Woman to Watch x Adobe Fellow.
Producer Neyda Martinez is the producer of the documentary films BARTOLO and A CHASM IN CHINATOWN/BIRTH OF AN AMERICAN MUSEUM; DECADE OF FIRE (2018); LUCKY (2013); Co-Executive Producer of the narrative short ACUITZERAMO (HBO), and associate producer for HBO's Habla Now (2020). Neyda helped build national recognition of American Documentary's (AmDoc) acclaimed nonfiction series' POV and AMERICA REFRAMED. A strategic advisor to the Oscar-nominated short documentary, TAKEOVER, she also helmed the national engagement campaigns for PBS' Peabody award-winning series, Latino Americans, and WNYC's podcast "La Brega." Neyda serves on the boards of Women Make Movies and climate justice organization, UPROSE. She is a Fellow of the Sundance Institute Documentary Lab (2022-23) and the New School for Social Research Heilbroner Capitalism Studies (2022-23). She is director of the Media Management at the New School for Social Research and a Sundance Woman to Watch x Adobe Fellow.
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