Well read: One to watch – Financial advisor films cracking documentary

Long time financial advisor Chad Parks is turning his trade to film-making in a bid to change attitudes about retirement.

Long time financial advisor Chad Parks is turning his trade to film-making in a bid to change attitudes about retirement and express the dire need for proper planning.

“Most of the people I know in their early 20s or early 30s have no plan for retirement and I think it’s a huge, looming problem,” says co-director Jonathon Boal. Financial advisors have long struggled to express the importance of proper retirement planning so, in the wake of the Great Recession, Parks decided to change tactics in an attempt to get the point across.

The hard-hitting documentary, dubbed Broken Eggs, focuses on the looming retirement crisis in America – a crisis all too many Canadians can relate to. Featuring everyone from generation X to early boomers, the film highlights the plight of workers struggling to save and stresses the need for a renewed retirement policy, no matter what your age.

According to a dismal 2014 report by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, more than 40% of Canadian baby boomers are expected to run short in their retirement.  “You read stats all day and they just go in one ear and out the other,” Parks says. “We wanted to tell the story and humanize the issue.”

The film does just that and features one elderly San Fran couple who thought they’d done everything right until an unfortunate and unavoidable series of personal events coupled with the disastrous financial crisis all but fried their hard-earned nest egg.

Advisors will know that the situation isn’t uncommon and the middle-class couple definitely aren’t the only boomers to face financial disappointment, or even ruin, in their later years. Park’s film draws much needed attention to the situation and, perhaps most importantly, makes the issue relatable to everyone.

Visit www.BrokenEggsFilm.com to watch the full movie. 

LATEST NEWS