Life and Debt, the opening film of this year's Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, is a tough lesson in economics, a documentary designed to cure those of us who like to believe that tariffs, subsidies, and the policies of the International Monetary Fund don't have much to do with us and our lives.

Jamaica serves as the case study through which we learn about the dynamics of globalism. Although colonialism was ended long ago and so-called Third World countries were given their independence, the financial pressures on the struggling nations end up continuing imperialism by another name. Since it gained independence from England in 1962, mistakes, financial necessity, and inexcusable greed by the former rulers have led to what can only be described as the rape of the island.

The accumulation of despairing personal testimonies is devastating, as we learn how industry after industry is ruined by greed and shortsightedness. The faces of farmers and textile workers stand in sharp contrast to the self-satisfied explanations of an IMF henchman who couches his justifications in ever so much corporate speak.

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Of course, the eye-opening lessons about the WTO, the IMF, Chiquita and Dole and Hanes, subsidies and tariffs, will only be seen by those who already have an inkling about the cruelty and unfairness of the situation. Not even the grooving Ziggy Marley soundtrack will help sell "Life and Debt" to a wide audience. It is testament to our own callousness and complicity that this summer, we'd rather escape into moronic fantasies like "Evolution" or self-congratulatory nostalgia like "Pearl Harbor" instead of spending time to learn about the wrongs committed in the our names, and the name of the free market.

Produced and directed by Stephanie Black; narration written by Jamaica Kincaid, based on her book "A Small Place"; directors of photography, Malik Sayeed, Kyle Kibbe, Richard Lannaman and Alex Nepomniaschy; edited by Jon Mullen; music by Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, Bob Marley, Dean Fraser, Buju Banton, Sizzla, Harry Belafonte, Mutabaruka, Rolando E. McLean, Peter Tosh and Anthony B.; released by Tuff Gong Pictures. Running time: 86 minutes. This film is not rated.