Home » What's On Glasgow West End: cinema, clubs, theatre, music, events, festivals, community and more » Spank the Banker Documentary feature film by Samir Mehanovic

Spank the Banker Documentary feature film by Samir Mehanovic

Spank the Banker

…the story of the world’s biggest bank heist and how they got away with it!

Documentary feature film

Director: Samir Mehanovic

Producers: Samir Mehanovic & George Kerevan

With participation by Noel Edmonds

Spank the Banker –the film will screen at GFT on Tuesday 19 March at 6.15 p.m.  Buy tickets. 

BAFTA-winning film maker Samir Mehanovic says his latest, feature-length, cinema documentary is “all about winning justice and compensation for tens of thousands of people scammed by big banks like RBS and Lloyds”.

Mehanovic’s previous films include the highly praised Fog of Srebrenica, about the infamous massacre of Bosnian Muslims by the Serbian military, and Through Our Eyes, which follows a group of Syrian refugees as they laugh, cry, debate and sing their way to a new life in Europe.

Says Mehanovic: “My films are about exposing injustice while giving the victims the dignity of speaking for themselves. But not all injustice takes place abroad.  Since 2008, over one hundred thousand small businesses in the UK, Europe and America have been deliberated looted by the big British banks and their corporate lawyers”.

Mehanovic’s latest film follows the individual stories of six ordinary yet defiant individuals who fought back against Britain’s corrupt financial system and the legal and political tricks the big banks use to crush opposition.  In forensic detail, the movie explains how the banks get away – literally – with fleecing their customers.

Mehanovic’s co-producer George Kerevan, a former MP and member of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee, explains: “Assets have been stolen through fraudulent lending, falsified documentation and financial manipulation.  Experts reckon £100 billion has been looted which makes it the biggest heist in history. Yet the regulatory authorities do nothing.  Spank the Banker is going to send the culprits to jail”.

Samir Mehanovic is a passionate believer that cinema documentaries are not neutral, in the pretend manner of mainstream television. Coming from war and losing hope in mainstream politicians he quotes Elie Wiesel: “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere”.

Spank the Banker tells the story of Nikki and Paul Turner, who did sound and lighting for Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen and the famous Live Aid concert – only to have their company stolen by HBOS-Lloyds.  After a ten-year struggle the perpetrators of this fraud have been sent to jail, but Lloyds board continues the cover-up.

Of high-tech entrepreneur Neil Mitchell, a victim of the infamous RBS Global Restructuring Group.  GRG forced customers to take bigger loans then re-valued their property to claim they could not repay – allowing the bank to seize the assets and sell them on at a profit.  When he complained, Mitchell’s phone was tapped by the bank.

Of widow Juliette Mottram and her five children, evicted illegally from their family home by Lloyds after corrupt bank officials seized her husband’s company through fraud.

Of Jim McGrory, who overcame childhood polio to build an international hotel business in St. Andrews only to lose it to the Clydesdale Bank through a mis-sold loan and forged documents created by bank staff.

And of TV personality Noel Edmonds, who was pushed to the edge of suicide when his £60m business was stolen by HBOS-Lloyds, which was subsequently found to have withheld key documents from the courts.

Spank the Banker also draws on expert interviews with police chiefs, financial journalists and parliamentary campaigners to expose the way the big banks steal from their small business customers.  And explain why the official bank regulator, the FCA, and the UK Treasury refuse to intervene in case paying compensation brings the banks down.

Says Kerevan: “This was not an easy film to make.  On several occasions we were escorted out of Canary Wharf, where the banks are headquartered, by security staff.  We were stopped from filming outside the Bank of England, which the public are supposed to own.  No senior banker was prepared to be interviewed on camera.”

With Brexit looming, Spank the Banker raises vital questions regarding the City of London, the big banks and the future they have in store for us.

Spank the Banker website

Trailer on Vimeo 

Paradiso Films website

Interview with filmmaker Samir Mehanovic with Calum Maclean

This section: Cinema, What's On Glasgow West End: cinema, clubs, theatre, music, events, festivals, community and more