The Take

Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis saw the mass collapse of the country’s financial institutions, leaving more than half the country living in poverty (some sources put the figure as high as three quarters for 2002). Following the economic collapse, more than 200 factories were seized and reopened as cooperatives.

Shot during the following two years, Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein’s The Take tells the story of what it calls “the largest sovereign debt default in history” through Freddy Espinosa, a worker at Forja San Martin, an auto-parts factory on the outskirts of greater Buenos Aires. Like countless Argentines, Espinosa is left jobless after his factory closes. But rather than despairing, Espinosa launches “the take,” embarking on a quest to expropriate Forja and begin production anew under worker supervision, with the help of his co-workers and an organization called the National Movement of Recovered Companies.