Real - A Historic Plan

While Brazil continues suffering through times of political and economic convulsion, Rodrigo Bittencourt retraces the genesis of the Plan Real, the stabilization project that Itamar Franco’s government designed to end hyperinflation in the 1990s. The director follows this history through the rise of economist Gustavo Franco, from his days as a university professor to his arrival in the Treasury Department led by Fernando Henrique Cardoso (who would become president of Brazil in 1995) to his time as head of the Central Bank and the parliamentary commission that had to confront the Banestado case. With solid pacing, while introducing the audience to the very technical aspects of economics without avoiding the contentious and divisive realities that these policies produced, the film takes a hard look at a period whose markings are still very much visible in the reality of Latin America. (Mar del Plata International Film Festival)