Investigative reporters Leslie and Andrew Cockburn take on the biggest economic crisis of our lifetime: the sub-prime mortgage meltdown that has caused more than a million Americans to lose their homes. They interview Wall Street wizards who are as nervous about revealing their identity as any mobster in the witness protection program. They put a human face on the victims of bankers who targeted minority communities with no income verification loans, adjustable rates and complex language that even the pros can’t fathom. Out of this mess, the filmmakers build a case against those who used government deregulation to make a fortune for the few and create havoc for the many.

“I don’t think most people really understood that they were in a casino” says award-winning financial reporter Mark Pittman.  “When you’re in the Street’s casino, you’ve got to play by their rules.”  This film finally explains how and why over $12 trillion of our money  vanished into the American Casino.

We meet the players.  A banker explains that the complex securities he  designed were “fourth dimensional” and sold to “idiots.”  A senior Wall Street ratings agency executive describes being ordered to “guess” the worth of billion dollar securities. A mortgage loan salesman explains how borrowers’ incomes were inflated to justify a loan.  A billionaire describes how he made a massive bet that people would lose their homes and has won $500 million, so far.

Finally, as the global financial system crumbles and outraged but impotent lawmakers fume at Wall Street titans, we see the casino’s endgame: Riverside, California a foreclosure wasteland given over to colonies of rats and methamphetamine labs, where disease-bearing mosquitoes breed in their millions on  the stagnant swimming pools of yesterday’s dreams.

Filmed over twelve months in 2008, American Casino takes you inside a game that our grandchildren never wanted to play.

It is rare that a documentary director has the privilege to shoot a film that, while in production, becomes the greatest story of our time.

Discussions to Follow Each Screening. Please join us.

Producer's Web Site: www.AmericanCasinoTheMovie.com