PRESS RELEASE
March 9, 2016 (London) - Bill and Ben Productions
and Brainstorm Media announce the release of Terry
Jones’s new feature documentary BOOM BUST
BOOM, which shows the link between our unstable
economy and how economics is taught. A mix of live
action, animation, puppetry and song, BOOM BUST
BOOM opens theatrically in the UK on March 23 at
the RSA in London, will be at selected cinemas March
24 and iTunes/Amazon/On Demand March 29.
A timely call to action, BOOM BUST BOOM
investigates the worldwide economic crash of 2008,
and how we can avoid another global collapse in the
future. Analysing the direct link between the unstable
financial system and our reliance on mainstream
economics, the film puts a spotlight on the mistakes
of the past some politicians and central bankers would
like us to forget.
MONTY PYTHON
TERRY JONES
TACKLES GLOBAL
ECONOMICS IN BOOM
BUST BOOM OPENING
THEATRICALLY IN
UK ON MARCH 23 AT
THE RSA IN LONDON
Followed by release on iTunes
and On Demand March 29
BOOM BUST BOOM
BOOM BUST BOOM also features high profile
advocates for change such as John Cusack, journalists
Paul Mason and John Cassidy plus leading experts
including the Chief Economist of the Bank of England,
Andy Haldane, and Nobel Prize winners Daniel
Kahneman, Robert Shiller and Paul Krugman.
The documentary is a result of a meeting between
writer, director, historian and Python Jones and
economics professor and entrepreneur Theo Kocken,
founder of Cardano Insights. BOOM BUST BOOM is
co-written by Jones and Kocken and co-directed by
Jones with son Bill Jones and Ben Timlett, AKA Bill &
Ben Productions.
BOOMBUSTCLICK.COM
Twitter @boombustclick lnstagram @boombustclick
Facebook/BoomBustBoom
For press enquiries contact:
Chuck Baker +44 75 0812 5611
[email protected]
Running time 72 minutes
Rated 12A
Shot on C300
Locations UK, US, Netherlands & Puerto Rico
TO V
I
RAI
EW T
LER
“I wanted to be part of this project as soon as I
discovered economics students are taught crashes just
don’t happen, ” filmmaker Terry Jones commented.
Kocken continues, “BOOM BUST BOOM is a film
about our inherently unstable economic system and
proposes a simple idea - let’s adapt economics to
human nature.”
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NOTES TO EDITORS:
ABOUT ECONOMY
Following their appearance in Boom Bust Boom,
Rethinking Economics announce a brand new current
affairs and education website. Launching in March
Economy uses comedy, animation, writing, news and
jargon-free economics. With support from BOOM BUST
BOOM executive producers Cardano Insights, Economy is
on a mission to change the way we think about economics
and make it more relevant to people’s lives.
ABOUT CARDANO INSIGHTS
ABOUT BILL AND BEN PRODUCTIONS
Emmy Nominated Directors and Producers Bill Jones and
Ben Timlett grew up together in South East London,
starting out in the industry as editors. Over the years
Bill and Ben have developed a unique and distinctive
approach to storytelling using a vast range of techniques
and media coupled with a clear vision to inform and
entertain audiences.
ABOUT THE RSA
Through undertaking and sharing cutting edge research
and driving innovation, the RSA creates networks and
opportunities for people to collaborate and create real world
impact. Our areas of work range from the future of our cities
and communities, to education, moving towards a more
creative economy and the redesign of public services.
Boom Bust Boom is their third feature as co-directors and
co-producers. Other credits include A Liar’s Autobiography
starring the five remaining members of Monty Python and
Absolutely Anything, produced by the pair in 2015 and
starring Simon Pegg and Robin Williams.
ABOUT BRAINSTORM MEDIA
Executive Producers of the economic documentary
Boom Bust Boom and funders of educational website
Economy, Cardano Insights focuses on the world of
economics and finance, and on how a robust approach to
risk management can help lead to a stable financial life.
The organisation aims to grow the understanding of
responsible financial management by turning academic
economic theory into relevant and practical examples
that can be taught in schools, universities and companies,
through to government organisations. The team is led
by Theo Kocken, co-group CEO of Cardano and also
Professor of Risk Management for Institutional Investors
at the VU University of Amsterdam. Cardano Insights is
the educational arm of Cardano, a purpose-built pension
investment manager with an advisory mind-set.
BOOM BUST BOOM
Founded in 1995, Brainstorm Media is a full service US film
distributor and production company. A boutique with a
strong base of strategic partners, it is widely recognised for
its expertise in TV, VOD and SVOD and for its innovations
in distribution and marketing. Recent releases include
Anders Morgenthaler’s The 11th Hour, PlantPure Nation,
and Patagonia’s Jumbo Wild. Brainstorm Media worked
with Bill and Ben previously, handling all North American
distribution for A Liar’s Autobiography.
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SYNOPSIS
“Boom Bust Boom is a seriously comic
look at why crashes happen, told by a
member of Monty Python, the finest
minds in economics, writers, puppets
and a movie star.”
A timely call to action, BOOM BUST BOOM
investigates the worldwide economic crash of
2008, and how we can avoid another global
collapse in the future. Analyzing the direct link
between the unstable financial system and our
reliance on mainstream economics, the film
puts a spotlight on the mistakes of the past
some politicians and central bankers would like
us to forget.
Taking as its starting point the 2008 economic
crisis, Monty Python Terry Jones walks us
through the history of crashes. In the years
leading up to the most recent economic crash,
lending had become so reckless a third of all
homeowners bought houses with so­called ninja
loans between 2004­5. Borrowers could state
their assets without the need for evidence, and
mortgages were approved. The riskiest lending
created a domino effect throughout all lending,
suddenly banks distrusted each other and debts
were not renewed. This liquidity crisis saw the
banks collapse in succession.
The crash shocked the world, but how did
experts not see it coming? Crashes have been
happening throughout history for centuries,
from Tulip Mania in 1637 to the South Sea
Bubble of 1720 to the Wall Street crash of 1929
and many in between and after. The speculative
euphoria pre­empting each crash is not an
isolated phenomenon but intrinsic to human
nature. We spend money hoping wonderful
things will happen to us in the future and invent
explanations to justify extended borrowing and
spending, recklessly optimistic.
BOOM BUST BOOM
Jones asks, in this case, are we are able to
recognise a bubble when we are in one? One
economist, Hyman Minsky, spent decades
discredited by his peers until 2008 when his
life’s work on the inevitability of crashes proved
prophetic and experts finally recognized Minsky
might be on to something. However, as the world
recovers from its latest crash, it’s all too likely
Minsky will be forgotten and the cycle of boom
and bust will devastate us again in years to come.
BOOM BUST BOOM presents an idea -­if human
beings are inherently irrational, as illustrated
by footage from behavioural research facility
Monkey Island in Puerto Rico the economic
system should perhaps be adapted to protect
us from our behaviour.
In order to change the economic system, we
must start with education. Today, virtually no
university degree syllabus will cover crashes,
as the idea of a financial crisis challenges the
existing economic model. As a result, graduate
economists enter the workplace unable to
engage with the real world. BOOM BUST BOOM ­
suggests a simple solution, change the teaching
and the new generation of economists will
change the system.
4
THE CONTRIBUTORS
Dan Ariely
Willem H Buiter
Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of
Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke
University and a founding member of the Center
for Advanced Hindsight. Ariely has said that
he wrote the books Predictably Irrational and
The Upside of Irrationality in an “attempt to
take my research findings and describe them
in non-academic terms so that more people
will learn about this type of research, discover
the excitement of behavioral economics, and
possibly use some of the insights to enrich
their own lives.”
Willem H Buiter has taught at Princeton
University, the University of Bristol, the London
School of Economics, Yale University and
Cambridge University. He was an external
member of the monetary policy committee
of the Bank of England and Chief Economist
and Special Counsellor to the President of
the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development. He has been an advisor to and
consultant for, amongst others, the International
Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the
European Commission.
Dirk Bezemer
John Cassidy
Dirk Bezemer holds a PhD in economics and
two MSc degrees in agriculture. He was a
researcher at Imperial College, London and
worked in policy advice and in the UK civil
service (DfID) before joining Groningen
University where he is an Associate Professor.
His 2009-2010 work on financial fragility
and economic models was widely quoted.
He contributes regularly in the Dutch press
and is a frequent invited speaker at
international conferences.
John Cassidy has been a staff writer at
The New Yorker since 1995. His latest book,
“How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic
Calamities,” was published in November, 2009.
Cassidy is also a contributor to The New York
Review of Books and a financial commentator
for the BBC.
Zvi Bodie
Zvi Bodie is the Norman and Adele Barron
Professor of Management at Boston University
and has served on the finance faculty at
Harvard Business School and MIT’s Sloan
School of Management. Professor Bodie has
published widely on pension finance and
investment strategy in leading professional
journals. His textbook Financial Economics is
co-authored by Nobel Prize winning economist,
Robert C. Merton.
BOOM BUST BOOM
JK Galbraith
From the 1950s through the 1970s, John
Kenneth Galbraith was one of the most widely
read economists in the United States. Author
of The Affluent Society and The New Industrial
State, Galbreith was on the editorial board of
Fortune, became an economics professor at
Harvard and was an adviser to President John F.
Kennedy. He was also president of the American
Economic Association in 1972.
5
Andy Haldane
Paul Krugman
Hyman P Minsky
Robert J Shiller
Andrew G Haldane is the Chief Economist at
the Bank of England and Executive Director
for Monetary Analysis and Statistics. In 2014,
TIME magazine voted him one of the 100 most
influential people in the world. Andy has written
extensively on domestic and international
monetary and financial policy issues.
Paul Krugman is the professor of Economics
and International Affairs at Princeton University
and in 2008 won the Nobel economics prize
for his analysis of trade patterns and location of
economic activity. He is one of the founders of
the “new trade theory.” Krugman is the author
or editor of 20 books, over 200 papers and is a
columnist for The New York Times.
Financial economist Hyman P Minsky studied
at Harvard and Chicago University and was
a Levy Institute distinguished scholar from
1990 until his death in 1996. Minsky taught
at Carnegie Tech and Brown University, was
an associate professor of economics at the
University of California, Berkeley, and professor
of economics at Washington University, St
Louis. Minsky rejected conventional economic
ideas such as the efficient market hypothesis in
favour of what he called the “financial instability
hypothesis.” He was a recipient in 1996 of
the Veblen-Commons Award, given by the
Association for Evolutionary Economics.
Professor Shiller was awarded the 2013
Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, together
with Eugene Fama and Lars Peter Hansen,
“for their empirical analysis of asset prices.”
Shiller is Sterling Professor of Economics at
Yale University and Professor of Finance and
Fellow at the International Center for Finance,
Yale School of Management. He has written
numerous books and also has a regular column
‘Economic View’ in The New York Times.
Daniel Kahneman
Daniel Kahneman is a Senior Scholar at
the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs, Professor of Psychology
and Public Affairs Emeritus at the Woodrow
Wilson School, the Eugene Higgins Professor
of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University
and a fellow of the Center for Rationality at
the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has
been the recipient of many awards, including
the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002.
Steve Keen
Steve is Associate Professor of Economics &
Finance at the University of Western Sydney,
and author of the popular book Debunking
Economics. Keen was one of the handful of
economists to realise that a serious economic
crisis was imminent in 2008 and publicly
warned of it as early as December 2005.
This, and his pioneering work on modeling
debt-deflation, resulted in him winning the
Revere Award from the Real World Economics
Review for being the economist whose work is
most likely to prevent a future financial crisis.
Stephen Kinsella
Stephen Kinsella is a senior lecturer in
economics at the Kemmy Business School,
University of Limerick and a Research Fellow
at the Geary Institute at UCD. He has
written four books, is a weekly columnist for
the Irish Independent and also writes a
bi-weekly column for the Guardian regarding his
knowledge of the Irish and European economies.
BOOM BUST BOOM
George Magnus
George Magnus is an independent economist,
consultant, author and commentator who, until
recently, held the position of Senior Economic
Advisor at UBS and had previously been their
Chief Economist. He is well known for his
commentaries and interviews in the media,
especially concerning the Great Financial Crisis
of 2008.
Paul Mason
Channel 4 News Economics Editor
Paul Mason won the Wincott Prize for
Business Journalism in 2003, the Workworld
Broadcaster of the Year in 2004 and the
Diageo African Business Reporting Award in
2007. His report on the social movements
behind Bolivian president Evo Morales was
cited when Newsnight was awarded the
Orwell Prize in 2007.
Perry Mehriling
Perry Mehrling is a member of the Academic
Council at the Institute for New Economic
Thinking and has been a professor of economics
at Barnard College since 1987. He has also held
visiting positions at the MIT Sloan School of
Management and Boston University. Mehrling
received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard
University, a master’s degree from the London
School of Economics, and a Ph.D. from
Harvard University.
Lucy Prebble
Lucy Prebble wrote the critically acclaimed
ENRON which transferred to the West End
and Broadway in 2010 after sell out runs at both
the Royal Court and Chichester Festival Theatre.
Prebble won the award for Best New Play at the
TMA Theatre Awards, and was shortlisted for
the Evening Standard Award and Olivier Award
for Best New Play. She is currently adapting
ENRON for Sony Pictures.
Laurie Santos
Laurie Santos runs the Comparative Cognition
Laboratory (CapLab) at Yale, where she and
collaborators across departments (from
psychology to primatology to neurobiology)
explore the evolutionary origins of the human
mind by studying lemurs, capuchin monkeys and
other primates. Santos and her team have taught
monkeys to use a form of money and Santos’
research suggests that the source of our bad
money decisions might be our monkey brains.
Nathan Tankus
Nathan Tankus is a student and research
assistant at the University of Ottawa. His
current research interests include the history of
economic thought, economic history, financial
instability and crises, the evolution of monetary
systems, public and private planning, and
balance of payments economics.
Sweder Van Wijnbergen
Van Wijnbergen has a PhD in Econometrics
and a doctorate in economics from MIT. He
worked as chief economist at the World Bank
and then became Professor of Macroeconomics
at the University of Amsterdam. He advices
many governments and institutions on taxation,
pensions, financial reforms and privatisation .
6
THE TEAM
TERRY JONES
THEO KOCKEN & CARDANO
BILL AND BEN PRODUCTIONS
MADE VISUAL STUDIO
Terry Jones is a director, writer, actor, historian
and member of Monty Python. His directorial
credits include features films (Life of Brian,
The Meaning of Life, The Holy Grail, Personal
Services, Erik The Viking), documentaries
(Medieval Lives, Barbarians) and screenplays
(Labyrinth, Ripping Yarns). Terry is also author of
several books including Chaucer’s Knight.
Theo Kocken is a veteran economist and
entrepreneur. He has 25 years of experience in
the financial industry. He is professor of Risk
Management at VU University Amsterdam and
founder of the Anglo-Dutch risk management
firm Cardano. His aim is to make financial
decision making less of a gamble and more
focused on stabilizing lifelong income for young
people, entrepreneurs and retirees. As chairman
of Cardano Insights, he and his colleagues
also support innovative financial insurance
products such as drought insurance and currency
insurance in over 50 developing countries.
Education is integral to Theo’s work.
Bill Jones and Ben Timlett met when they were
four in Camberwell, South London. In 1998
they formed Bill and Ben Productions to direct,
produce and edit independent feature films,
documentaries and music videos together.
In 2010, both Bill and Ben received two
nominations each in the best direction and best
production categories of the 62nd Prime Time
Emmy Awards for Monty Python Almost The
Truth. Boom Bust Boom is their third feature
as co-directors and co-producers. Other credits
include A Liar's Autobiography starring the
five remaining members of Monty Python
and Absolutely Anything, produced by
the pair in 2014 and starring Simon Pegg
and Robin Williams.
Justin Weyers, creative director at Made Visual
Studio, produced and directed animation, and
acted as creative lead for the boombustclick
initiative. With 15 years of experience working
across advertising, fashion, branding and film
production. The studios recent projects have
been focused on collaboration, education and
entertainment for the likes of National Trust,
Ebay and KISS.
BOOM BUST BOOM
Made Visual Studio is focused on mentoring,
creative opportunity and ownership. As
animation producer on the feature film A Liar's
Autobiography they brought 17 different styles of
animation together from 15 international studios.
Making economics entertaining Made Visual
Studio and its team have thrived in the process.
7
THE TEAM CONTINUED
JONNY & WILL
MAISIE NOBLE
ARTHURCOX
MOTH COLLECTIVE
Awarded a Golden Arrow for Best New Director
at the 2013 British Television Advertising Craft
awards and nominated for a Children's BAFTA,
Jonny Sabbagh & Will Harper are puppet
filmmakers with ten years experience.
Lon­don-based illus­tra­tor Maisie Noble grad­ua­ ted
from Uni­ver­sity of the Arts Lon­don in 2013 with
a first class hon­ours degree in fash­ion illus­tra­
tion. Maisie has since worked on a wide vari­ety
of projects from Boom Bust Boom to a monthly
series of illus­tra­tions for fash­ion pub­li­ca­tion Volt,
an ani­mated project for The National Trust and
pat­tern and print design for shoe designer Ffion
Lloyd. Maisie's work proved hugely influential
to Boom Bust Boom as she rendered the world's
financial history in her trademark style.
BAFTA Award winning film and animation
Production Company ArthurCox is known for
strong character based narratives. We are
particularly respected for our Disney children’s
series ‘Nina Needs to Go’, comedy such as
the multi award winning ‘John and Karen’
by Matthew Walker and for the animated
documentaries of George Sander-Jackson.
Moth is an award winning animation collective
based in London. After graduating from the
Royal College of Art in 2010, they began
collaborating and exploring their shared love in
all things drawn. Specialising in hand-drawn and
2D animation, they work on a variety of projects,
from short and feature film work to commercial
projects, music videos and films for charities
and non-profit organisations. Their work has
been screened in festivals worldwide and
won numerous awards including a Bafta
nomination for 'Matter Fisher'. They are
Daniel Chester, David Prosser, and
Marie-Margaux Tsakiri-Scanatovits.
Johnny & Will's work includes TV shows, feature
films, music videos and commercials. The pair
direct, write scripts, perform voices, create
environments, write and record music, make
props, rig and puppeteer just about anything.
For Boom Bust Boom, world leaders and
economists were brought to life as Johnny &
Will created puppet versions of President Calvin
Coolidge, J.K. Galbraith and Hyman Minsky.
BOOM BUST BOOM
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FILM STILLS
BOOM BUST BOOM
TO DOWNLOAD ALL IMAGES
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PRODUCTION STILLS
BOOM BUST BOOM
TO DOWNLOAD ALL IMAGES
All photography stills copyright Nick Rutter (Director of Photography)
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