112 mins; 2010
By Allan Sekula and Noël Burch
Film website
Investigates global maritime trade, highlighting displaced farmers and villagers in Holland, underpaid truck drivers in Los Angeles and Filipino maids in China. Sekula and Burch offer a sobering portrait of workers’ conditions, the inhuman scale of sea trade and the secret lives of port cities.
Tala is a young Filipino domestic worker living with a bourgeois family on the north shore of Montreal. As she runs through her daily chores, dealing with the eccentricities of her employers, an unexpected phone call puts her at great risk of getting fired. Shot in a single long take and inspired by the current ‘Live-In Caregiver’ program of the Canadian federal government, ‘Tala’ tells a story of subtle oppression and re-empowerment.
Directed by: Pier-Phillippe Chevigny
Working conditions on the banana and pineapple plantations of Latin America are tough… here workers tell of trade union persecution, low wages and exposure to pesticides… made for the Make Fruit Fair campaign – to find out more about the social and environmental impacts of pesticides in Costa Rica.
Directed by: Jan Nimmo
http://www.jannimmo.com/PPHL.html
When Scottish artist, Jan Nimmo, travels to Ecuador, the world’s largest exporter of bananas, to gather workers’ testimonies, she observes the formation of the first trade unions in the banana sector for 30 years. The Los Alamos banana workers decide to go on strike for the most basic of rights. Alvaro Noboa, Ecuador’s richest man owns the plantation’s owner, Bonita Brands, and Noboa doesn’t like unions. Bonita is the world’s fourth largest banana company yet the workers earn a pittance, are exposed to a cocktail of toxic agrochemicals and their living conditions are appalling. Bonita is a powerful eyewitness account of what happens to workers who dare to stand up against a powerful oligarch.
Directed by: Jan Nimmo
http://www.jannimmo.com/Bonita.html
What are unions for? Haitian union leaders explain the role of unions and why civil society is necessary for a country to develop itself. The documentary shows unions in action, in different sectors of society like the peasantry, schools, hospitals, transportation, municipal services, garment factories in Haiti’s free zones. Social protection, public services and the necessity of the rule of law are also discussed. Best short documentary in the ‘Regards d’ici’ section at Vues d’Afrique, the most important French language film festival for African and Creole films outside of Africa.
Directed by: Andre Vanasse http://www.vuesdafrique.com
A Documentary Film and Resource Website by Rainbow Collective and Openvizor. In Savar, Bangladesh, Razia struggles to raise two grandchildren after losing her daughters in the Rana Plaza factory collapse, a disaster which claimed the lives of over 1000 garment workers. One year on, Tears in the Fabric follows Razia as, amidst the struggle of raising and educating her grandsons, she searches for resolution and answers through protest on the streets of Dhaka and amongst the rubble and torn fabrics of Rana Plaza. Tears in the Fabric offers a starkly honest and deeply moving view of the human cost of high street fashion.
Directed by: The Rainbow Collective, UK
http://www.rainbowcollective.co.uk/#!tears-in-the-fabric/c1zdc
(André Vanasse & Jean-Nathan Aristil, 2012, 36 min) Unions in many sectors of Haitian society and their role in economic development.
http://www.productionsbonsai.com
(Daniel Martín Gómez, 2013, 14 min) Two women job seekers who emigrated to Germany, from different ends of Spain and two generations facing two very different ways of emigrating.
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