Admission: Free and open to all
Film Screening
104 minutes / Color
French / English subtitles
Release: 2023
MONEY, FREEDOM, A STORY OF THE CFA FRANC features rich archival footage and a wealth of interviews with economists, former politicians (including finance ministers and a prime minister), bankers — and even a colonial administrator. They discuss the CFA franc in the context of a colonial system that not only destroyed local governance and economic structures, but continues to prevent West African nations from re-imagining an economy that benefits Africans first. And they explore the devastating effects of the currency’s devaluation and the IMF’s austerity programs in the mid-1990s, followed by its overnight dramatic strengthening less than a decade later, when it became tied to the Euro—with no input from Africans.
