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Category Archives: Temp/Precarious work

Sorry We Missed You

05 Oct

2019 ‧ Drama ‧ 1h 40m

Ricky and his family have been fighting an uphill struggle against debt since the 2008 financial crash. An opportunity to wrestle back some independence appears with a shiny new van and the chance to run a franchise as a self-employed delivery driver. It’s hard work, and his wife’s job as a carer is no easier. The family unit is strong but when both are pulled in different directions everything comes to breaking point.

Initial release: May 16, 2019 (France)
Director: Ken Loach
Producer: Rebecca O’Brien
Screenplay: Paul Laverty
Nominations: Palme d’Or, Cannes Best Actress Award, MORE
Production companies: Wild Bunch, Why Not Productions, Sixteen Films

Sorry We Missed You review – Ken Loach’s superb swipe at zero-hours Britain

 
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Posted by on October 5, 2019 in A: New/Just Added, Construction Trades, Drama, Temp/Precarious work, Transportation, Working Class, zero hours work

 

Sorry to Bother You (2018)

23 Dec

R | 1h 51min | Comedy, Fantasy, Sci-Fi | 13 July 2018 (USA)
Director: Boots Riley
Writer: Boots Riley
Stars: Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler
website

NYT article here
“Sorry to Bother You” comes out in wide release in July 2018. The film is visually ingenious and funny, yet grounded by pointed arguments about the obstacles to black success in America, the power of strikes and the soul-draining predations of capitalism.

 
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Posted by on December 23, 2018 in Comedy, Communism/Socialism, Discrimination: Racism, Sexism, etc, Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Migrant workers, Organizing, Romance, SciFi, Service Workers, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Temp/Precarious work

 

Gaucho del Norte (2015)

06 Dec

54 min | Documentary, Adventure, Western
Directors: Andres Caballero, Sofian Khan

In the quiet, bucolic Patagonian countryside in the town of Bahia Murta with 587 inhabitants we meet Eraldo Pacheco, a thoughtful man who has recently arrived at a momentous decision. “Things are worse here than ever,” Eraldo tells his father and family as he announces his plan to move to the United States to fulfill a three-year contract tending sheep almost 6,000 miles away in rural Idaho. In this observational documentary of impressive beauty and painterly cinematic images the imbalance of economic forces is seen in high relief.
With poetic subtlety the film speaks to the economic fragility of these remote and rural communities in South America as well as the precarious and fickle agricultural economy up north. Once in Salt Lake City, Utah, we meet Jhonny Qispe, from Peru, who also made the trek up north and who also left a wife and two children behind.
Peaceful, meditative scenes envelop the viewer – vast desert, steep mountains, winter’s terrain and thousands of sheep belie the angst of the economic woes that cause a separation between a man and his beloved, his elders, his children, and the spiritual majesty of his homeland. Jhonny is also deeply invested in being a provider for his family. But what might seem like a pastoral, nomadic life is a lonely and tough existence.
While Eraldo is up north, he continues to fret about not being in Chile tending to his family, especially his elderly parents. Did he make the right choice?

 
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Posted by on December 6, 2015 in Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration, Migrant workers, Self-Employed/Freelance, Temp/Precarious work

 

Buzzard (2014)

06 Dec

97 min | Comedy, Drama | 6 March 2015 (USA)
Director/writer: Joel Potrykus
Stars: Joshua Burge, Joel Potrykus, Teri Ann Nelson

Marty is a caustic, small-time con artist drifting from one scam to the next. When his latest ruse goes awry, mounting paranoia forces him from his lousy small town temp job to the desolate streets of Detroit with nothing more than a pocket full of bogus checks, a dangerously altered Nintendo® Power Glove, and a bad temper. Albert Camus meets Freddy Krueger in BUZZARD, a hellish and hilarious riff on the struggles of the American working class.

NYTimes: Review: In ‘Buzzard,’ an Angry, Unkempt Antihero
An unsparing portrait of an office temp and scam artist near the bottom of the economic food chain.
NYTimes: Joel Potrykus’s Film ‘Buzzard’ Is Inspired by Dead-End Jobs
The writer and director’s deadpan comedies have followed a man-child on the skids.

 
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Posted by on December 6, 2015 in Comedy, Consumerism, Drama, Self-Employed/Freelance, Technology, Temp/Precarious work, Working Class

 

Pay Slip Shut Down (2014)

11 Nov

Filmmaker: Lee Salter

United Kingdon | 2014 | Documentary | 10 minutes

A film documenting the struggles of precarious workers to receive full pay from the hospitality industry in Brighton. This documents one such struggle, led by Solidarity Federation against a cafe that was not paying.
2015 Brazilian International Labour Film Festival

 
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Posted by on November 11, 2015 in Documentary, Temp/Precarious work