''Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders'' (2006) is an independent feature-length

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

and (2007) book that chronicles abusive practices in the

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

industry. Written and directed by

James Scurlock James Duncan Scurlock (born September 15, 1971) is an American director, producer, writer and financial adviser. He is probably best known for his documentary '' Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders'' and his boo ...

, the film and book use interviews with creditors, debtors, academics, and others to illustrate its story. The film, premiered at the

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, ...

Film Festival in Austin, Texas, USA, in 2006 where it claimed the Special Jury Prize, went on to several film fests including Seattle, Full Frame Documentary, Maui, New Zealand, Milwaukee International, Woodstock, Bergen, Leeds International, Oxford and IDFA (Amsterdam) film festivals.

Henry Rollins Henry Lawrence Garfield (born February 13, 1961), known professionally as Henry Rollins, is an American singer, writer, spoken word artist, actor, and presenter. After performing in the short-lived hardcore punk band State of Alert in 1980, Roll ...

selected ''Maxed Out'' when invited to host a favorite film within

Maryland Film Festival The Maryland Film Festival is an annual five-day international film festival taking place each May in Baltimore, Maryland. The festival was launched in 1999, and presents international film and video work of all lengths and genres. The festival ...

2007. The film was released in movie theaters in select cities in the United States in March 2007 through

Magnolia Pictures Magnolia Pictures is an American film distributor. It is a subsidiary of Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's 2929 Entertainment 2929 Entertainment, LLC. is an American integrated media and entertainment company co-founded by billionaire entrepreneur ...

. The DVD was released nationally on June 7, 2007, in the joint effort of Magnolia Pictures and Red Envelope Entertainment (a division of Netflix). The book ''Maxed Out'' is published by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster. It was published in March 2007 in hardcover and in December 2007 in paperback. Scurlock's purpose for the film and book was to raise awareness of how

credit Credit (from Latin verb ''credit'', meaning "one believes") is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a de ...

and lending issues are affecting society. The main premises of the documentary and book are that banks and other creditors deliberately market to people who are more likely to have problems paying and that the creditors benefit from connections to government, the debt collection industry, and from lawmaker apathy. The non-profit organization Americans for Fairness in Lending (AFFIL) has organized screenings of ''Maxed Out'' around the country as part of its work. AFFIL sustains a formal collaboration with the film.

References

USA TodayABC News.com

External links

*{{IMDb title, 0762117, Maxed Out 2006 films American documentary films Documentary films about business Documentary films about consumerism Magnolia Pictures films 2006 documentary films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films