Release Year: 2005

Duration: 8 min

Availability: Worldwide

Related: Campus, International, Politics, Shorts, Media that Matters

A singing peanut and his gang of shelled friends explain that sometimes free trade is just nuts.

More About The Luckiest Nut in the World from Director Emily James

I had been reading a lot about global economics and simply became obsessed with the idea that one could make a film which would give people enough economics and history with which they could engage, while still being thoroughly entertaining. I must have pitched a dozen different ideas on the subject before I came up with the concept for The Luckiest Nut. The film follows an animated American peanut, who sings about the difficulties of nuts from developing countries. The film helps people to see how the pressure to embrace “free market” economics, with its promise of a wealthy, abundant market place has actually driven many countries further into poverty. My favorite parts in the film are the musical sequences which explain the roles of the International Monetary Fund(IMF), theWorld Bank, and the World Trade Organization(WTO).

The response to the film has been amazing. After screening to over 1 million people on Channel 4, the film has been in numerous festivals, including, to my great pleasure, the One World Human Rights Film Festival in Prague. However, the most singular success in my mind was when Christian Aid in the UK used the film and its characters in the “Trade Rules are Nuts, Let’s Crack’m!” campaign. The fact that the film has been picked up in this way and is still being shown to help people see the follies of free market economics is a source of endless gratification to me.