After the 2008 financial crisis, taxpayers bailed out a slew of banks that were deemed “too big to fail,” even though it was their actions pushing subprime mortgages that few of clients could afford, which led to the crisis in the first place. But in the documentary film “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail,” WGBH’s FRONTLINE highlights the case of Thomas Sung and his daughters –- who own a bank in New York’s Chinatown, founded to serve the Chinese-American community. At the time, it was the 2,651st biggest bank in America, which is why it made perfect sense that they were the only U.S. bank to face criminal charges for the global financial disaster … or not.
The film has won the Critic’s Choice Award for best political documentary, and has been nominated for many others, including, this week, an Oscar for best documentary. Jim Braude was joined by FRONTLINE Executive Producer Raney Aronson-Rath.
