Jeffrey Himpele, Director of the VizE Lab, screened the award-winning short documentary “Shame On You!” at this year’s Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA) Film & Media Festival, which coincided with the AAA meetings held in Tampa. Himpele, the film’s producer and director, presented the film with a 15-minute Q&A session that covered various topics, including data on debt and shame, the film’s visual aspects, and the broader ethnographic possibilities of using animated documentary film to illuminate invisible structures and inequalities.

“Shame On You!” (11 min.) delves into data on debt collection lawsuits visualized by the Debt Collection Lab. It presents the narratives of three individuals who appear in lawsuits in the billion-dollar debt collection industry, shedding light on the indignities and consequences they endure. The film employs a verbatim script derived from interviews to illustrate how the business of debt collection profits from individuals’ shame regarding debt and their fear of the court system. After a year in film festival circuits, the film and its associated data visualizations are now freely accessible on the Debt Collection Lab. 

Himpele produced, directed, and edited Shame On You! at the VizE Lab and the film’s Executive Producer is Frederick Wherry (SOC).