[382] Local Screening Set For Documentary on Nobel Laureate

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 28, 2011
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

LOCAL SCREENING SET FOR DOCUMENTARY ON NOBEL LAUREATE
“To Catch a Dollar” Chronicles Former MTSU Economist Muhammad Yunus’ Work
(MURFREESBORO) – “To Catch a Dollar: Muhammad Yunus Banks on America,” a documentary about the work of a former MTSU professor, will be shown once only at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 31, at Carmike Wynnsong 16, 2626 Cason Square Blvd. in Murfreesboro.
The two-hour, 10-minute film from producer/director Gayle Ferraro will examine how microfinancing is working in the United States. Microfinancing as a means of lifting people out of poverty and helping to alleviate other social problems is the focus of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who taught economics at MTSU from 1969 to 1972.
Yunus and Grameen Bank, which he founded in Bangladesh’s capital city of Dhaka, were awarded the Nobel jointly in 2006 for the institutionalization of microcredit. The practice of awarding low-interest loans to millions of people with little or no collateral is hailed as a means of helping to lift people in developing nations out of poverty. In recent years, Yunus also has stressed the concept of a “social business,” a no-loss, no-dividend private enterprise dedicated to public welfare.
“It is a very powerful movie,” says Dr. Kiyoshi Kawahito, professor emeritus of economics and finance and founder of the Yunus Program at MTSU. “I know so because I saw the semi-finished version last November at the Global Social Business Summit in Germany.”
This movie will include a panel discussion featuring Yunus; financial guru Suze Orman, host of “The Suze Orman Show” on CNBC; and Kiva.org President Premal Shah. The panel moderator will be CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo.
In addition, various celebrities, including actors Hugh Jackman, Matt Damon and Robert DeNiro and record label executive Russell Simmons, will lend words of support for the creation of a Grameen America bank that will promote microcredit and social businesses in the U.S.
“To Catch a Dollar” was screened for the first time at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Murfreesboro’s Carmike Cinema is one of more than 250 theaters in the United States screening it. Admission is $9.50 for adults, $7.00 for seniors and college students and $6.75 for children.
For more information, contact Kawahito at 615-898-5751 or kawahito@mtsu.edu, or call Carmike Wynnsong at 615-893-2253.
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Founded in 1911, Middle Tennessee State University is a Tennessee Board of Regents institution located in Murfreesboro and is the state’s largest public undergraduate institution. MTSU now boasts one of the nation’s first master’s degree programs in horse science, and the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C., acclaims MTSU’s Master of Science in Professional Science degree—the only one in Tennessee—as a model program. Recently, MTSU unveiled three new doctoral degrees in the sciences.