Wide Angle. About the Series. Film Descriptions

To Have and Have Not
Thursday, July 18, 2002

Every year this nation's economy struggles to absorb 20 million new unemployed, while the newly rich move to gated communities with private schools and tennis courts. If this sounds like Daddy Warbuck's America, it isn't. It's the new China. Once the home of the "iron ricebowl" and social equality for all, today China has joined the ranks of the World Trade Organization. The country's new commitment to private enterprise and free markets may change China more in a single year than most countries change in a decade. This extraordinarily candid film introduces viewers to the unemployed, the working poor and the nouveaux riches alike.

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Director Jon Alpert has received 11 National Emmy Awards for news and documentary programs, as well as three Columbia DuPont Awards and a Christopher. His public television films include CUBA: THE PEOPLE and CHINATOWN: IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA. In 1977 he became the first American television filmmaker to enter Vietnam since the end of the war. His work for NBC and HBO has won multiple awards.

Photos: AP

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