Program 38
Sramik Awaaz: Workers Voices - Law At The Margins, a group of lawyers who assist labor organizing efforts worldwide, have produced this short film about women-led garment workers organizing in Bangladesh. (2015, 5 min)
The Learning Alliance - Three little boys collect garbage for money for food and school fees in Lahore, Pakistan. (Pakistan, 2016, 9 min)
My Birth Certificate - Four stop motion animations by a group of Bangladeshi children aged 7-11 show how having a birth certificate helps them to access government services like schools, and how proof of age and identity can stop early marriage and trafficking. (UK, 2016, 9 min)
Claiming our Voice - Shares the stories of Andolan, an organization founded and led by South Asian immigrant women low-wage workers as a means to support each other and collectively organize against exploitative work conditions. The film follows the women as they create, rehearse and refine acts for their first popular multi-lingual theater performance, directed by Yalini Dream. (2013, 20 min)
The Workers Unite Film Festival and DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving) present a film highlighting the struggle for labor rights in South Asia.
Udita - Documenting five turbulent years in the lives of the women who are at the grass roots of the garment workers struggle in Bangladesh. In their own words, they decribe how the factory owners live lavishly while the workers live like beggars. Garment workers live in run-down rooms in the slums where many have to share a communal bathroom and most sleep on the floor. Their salaries are barely enough to pay bills and afford food. Organizing a union to protect the over four million garment workers in the workplace led to punishment through beatings, sacking, and arrests. The 2013 tragedies of Tazreen and Rana Plaza, in which thousands of innocent lives were lost, lead up to the present day where the long fight continues. The film analyzes this period of time through the stories that are shared by the unions’ members, workers and leaders. (2015, 76 min)