Since John Law, barter was considered a thing of the past, except maybe in some small self-sufficient communities or archaïc societies. Yet it still can be a temporary and local solution to the extreme poverty in some parts of our modern societies. Ecofilms, the international film festival on ecology held each year on the sunny Greek island of Rhodes, was the echo of such an amazing experience as it screened in its non-competitive panorama section the astonishing documentary Homemade Money by Alejo Hoijman from Argentina (2004, 87 minutes).

The feature gives an insight into the original and rarely mentioned experience made by private Argentinians to survive as the monetary crisis of the 1990s deprived them of both work and unemployment benefits. In 1995, Carlos De Sanzo, Ruben Ravera and Horacio Covas, three Argentinians with no background in economics, initiated what was first a barter system in their own backyard with about ten of their acquaintance. Due to the extreme hardship facing the country, the phenomenon quickly spread nationwide as similar marketplaces, called nodos, mushroomed all over Argentina. Participants brought the goods they had produced and offered their services as electricians, hairdressers or even physicians according to their skills. In exchange, they were paid in "creditos", a money specially printed by the organizers of the marketplace, that they could only use to buy other goods or services in their community. The system became a large scale experience which at its peak comprised between 5 and 7 million people in 6,000 to 8,000 nodos.
The director catches the spirit of solidarity in these marketplaces as he shows newcomers struggling with their initial embarrassment and becoming more confident as they realize they still can do something meaningful at the fringe of a society that rejects them. He also shows how this homemade money ended up suffering from the same deadly evil as real pesos : massive inflation. In fact, as people entered the system, more money was printed (each newcomer was granted 50 creditos). When their situation improved, people started to get out of the organization, leaving an excess of creditos in circulation, which gradually decreased the value of the parallel currency. Moreover, fake creditos happened to flood the market just the week after the government failed to negotiate with the organizers of the barter system a way to start paying unemployment subsidies again, but through the nodos. The organizers didn't want the marketplaces to fall under the control of a government which was apparently starting to fear their growing strength. So the possibility that the government may be behind the massive and sudden flooding of the nodos with fake creditos, and the subsequent loss of value of the creditos, is more than plausible, as the documentary seems to imply.

To sum it up, the film is quite informative and benefits from the long time spent by the director in the nodos with those who participate in the system, those who run it and those who created it from scratch.

Olivier Delesse

Full coverage of Ecofilms 2005 on filmfestivals.com :

Ecofilms' opening stroke a sensitive chord

A decent factory tackles corporate responsibility at Ecofilms

Ecofilms also gives room to short films

Ecofilms grants a Medwet award for the second year

A spiritual angle on ecology at Ecofilms

Ecofilms presents an experimental answer to poverty in doc

Consumer society under the spotlight at Ecofilms with Czech Dream

Rhodes Golden Deers Awards