De Achtste Dag
Harrowing hour-to-hour reconstruction of the almost disastrous week in 2008 when unorthodox methods had to be used to save one of Europe’s largest banks, Fortis/ABN-Amro.
The financial crisis of 2008 was a web we had spun for more than thirty years, and which had brought us prosperity, larger houses and widescreen-televisions. But it turned out to be a giant house of cards. Starting in the US where the Lehman Brothers fell, the crisis spread like wildfire. Only two weeks after Lehman, the crisis infected Europe.
DE ACHTSTE DAG is a film about those seven days in 2008, during which all European countries had to work together, despite their differences. Suddenly, every second counted. Trust became more valuable than money. And unconventional methods were needed to save Fortis/ABN-Amro, which was twice the size of Lehman and had the potential of triggering the widely-feared domino-effect of falling banks all over the rest of the European continent and the British isles. Those who held all the power and control now take us back into this almost disastrous week.