Intertel; 7; Forty Million Shoes
- Series
- Intertel
- Episode Number
- 7
- Episode
- Forty Million Shoes
- Producing Organization
- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
- Contributing Organization
- Library of Congress (Washington, District of Columbia)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/512-154dn40m52
- NOLA Code
- ITTL
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- Description
- Episode Description
- South Americas increasing significance in the world picture is brought into dramatic focus in this Intertel documentary on Brazil. The key country of South America, Brazil contains half the land area of the continent and more than half the population. It is the fourth largest country in the word and it suffers the classic ailments that afflict a nation in which the rich are becoming richer, the poor becoming poorer. Most observers believe that if Brazil manages to solve its socio-economic problems and establish a balanced economy, most of South America will also be able to do so. If Brazil is unable to achieve this balance, few of its neighbors will achieve it. And if the West loses out in Brazil, it will loss the balance of power in South America. The following synopsis of Forty Million Shoes was written by Douglas Leiterman, who produced, directed, and wrote this Canadian Broadcasting Corporation contribution to Intertel. This documentary film is an impressionistic report on brazil, as seen through the lives of representative Brazilians. It examines their hopes, their hates, their chances for happiness and their influence on events which they will affect but cannot control. Half of the population is still illiterate, half goes barefoot, half suffers chronic malnutrition. In Recife, in the pro-communist northeast, only half the working force has jobs. In this area twenty million Brazilians live in poverty as wretched as anywhere in the world. Life expectancy here is thirty years, average income $8 a month. This area has produced the strongest Fidelista organization on the continent. Although the Communist Party is illegal, it dominates the Peasant League, which thrives on the festering discontent of the landless and the jobless. The problems of Brazil are clearly the crucial problems of all the long-suffering people of the South American republics. The privileged classes, who have an iron grip on the wealth and political structures of their countries, are only beginning to show concern for the millions of indigent, often starving peasants and slum-dwellers who beg only the right to work and be paid for their labor. A great awakening of the social conscience of Latin American is beginning, but is it too late? The poor and hungry have discovered in the examples of Cuba and China that there is an alternative to the oppression they have endured for generations under what they call capitalist exploitation. In Brazil the alternative is represented by the fast-spreading Peasant Leagues and their communist-oriented leader, Francisco Juliao. FORTY MILLION SHOES follows Juliao on his mission of agitation and propaganda into the drought-stricken interior provinces of his country. The program also examines the lives of sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Barros Barreto, daughter of a wealthy Brazilian family which traces its ancestry back 400 years; Regina da Silva, an indigent young girl who lives a very different life a few blocks from the Barreto mansion in Rio de Janeiro; and Youssef, a peasant farmer who ekes out a marginal existence in northeast Brazil, without water and without hope. Interviewed on the program are Dr. Fernando Lee, one of Brazils major industrialists from Sao Paulo, and Louis Alberto Bahia, the influential editor of the Rio de Janeiro newspaper Correa de Mania. The program also deals with the resignation in August 1961 of Brazils most popular and progressive president, Janio Quadros, and the inflationary spiral and political stalemate which has set in since he left. Forty Million Shoes was produced for Intertel by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The original music, adapted from Brazilian folk songs, was written by Harry Freedman. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
- Episode Description
- 1 hour piece, produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and initially distributed by NET in 1962. It was originally shot on film.
- Series Description
- Intertel, a dramatic breakthrough in the dissemination of ideas and cultural exchange through television, was conceived in November 1960. Five television broadcasters in the four major English-speaking nations joined to form the International Television Federation, to be known as Intertel, the first such international organization. The participants were Associated Rediffusion, Ltd. of Great Britain, the Australian Broadcasting Commission, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and for the United States, the National Educational Television and Radio Center and the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company. Intertel produced on a bi-monthly basis hour-long documentaries on important world topics, inaugurating a global television production agency dedicated to the creation of programs of substance and meaning. John F. White, President of NET, called Intertel more than a fusion of the creative talents of the organizations involved in producing television programs of outstanding merit. It is a step forward to world understanding, he added. I believe that the exchange of documentaries, while of great significance in the vastness of the mutual understanding in it can foster, is but the first step in a regular exchange of all forms of programming. Donald H. McGannon, President of WBC, hailed the new organization as a pool of the technical and creative ability and knowledge of all the groups which will extend the international horizons of television in all aspects. This is the first practical step, after years of talking and hoping, toward the creation and use of international television for cultural exchange and an effective weapon for peace. By having observers examine topics far removed from their everyday assignments, Intertel gives viewers a fresh viewpoint. The founder members indicated that by dubbing these programs in foreign languages and making them available to all nations, they hoped television companies in Europe, Asia and South America will eventually join this unique project. The supervisory committee for the United States programming segments consists of Mr. McGannon and Mr. White; Richard M. Pack, WBC Vice President Programming; and Robert Hudson, NET Vice President for Programming. Intertel came into formal being November 14, 1960, in a special meeting in Vancouver, B.C., and the culmination of plans for such an association which has been under way for a long time. John McMilliam of Associate Rediffusion, was named contemporary Coordinating Officer at that time. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
- Broadcast Date
- 1962-03-19
- Asset type
- Episode
- Genres
- Documentary
- Media type
- Moving Image
- Credits
-
-
Camera Operator: Woods, Grahame
Composer: Freedman, Harry
Director: Leiterman, Douglas
Editor: Haig, Don
Producer: Leiterman, Douglas
Producing Organization: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Writer: Leiterman, Douglas
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2332734-1 (MAVIS Item ID)
Format: 16mm film
Generation: Copy: Access
Color: B&W
-
Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive
Identifier: [request film based on title] (Indiana University)
Format: 16mm film
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- Citations
- Chicago: “Intertel; 7; Forty Million Shoes,” 1962-03-19, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed April 27, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-154dn40m52.
- MLA: “Intertel; 7; Forty Million Shoes.” 1962-03-19. Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. April 27, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-154dn40m52>.
- APA: Intertel; 7; Forty Million Shoes. Boston, MA: Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-154dn40m52