Globalization on Film: a double feature!
Saturday, May 05, 2012
8:00pm $8 in advance $8 at the door
GLOBALIZATION DOUBLE FEATURE! MAQUILAPOLIS: CITY OF FACTORIES AN
Chicago Filmmakers
5243 N. Clark Street
chicago, IL 60640
Click here for location info
Friday, May 5 - 8pm
GLOBALIZATION DOUBLE FEATURE!
MAQUILAPOLIS: CITY OF FACTORIES
AND
A KILLER BARGAIN
“Maquiladoras are the multi-national factories in Tijuana and other border points, where slightly better than average wages lure tens of thousands of women workers into becoming anonymous, and expendable, cogs in the globalization machine. Though Mexican labor laws are geared toward the workforce, the country casts a laissez-faire eye on corporations like Sony and Panasonic. The result has been a judicial outrage and an environmental disaster. Workers' rights are ignored, and the amount of toxic waste spewed into the surrounding area leaves residents with a litany of chronic health problems. Though other docus have focused on the maquiladoras, none have made the workers interactive players in their own presentation, as the helmers do here. By making the women themselves an integral part of the filmmaking process, directors Vicky Funari ("Live Nude Girls Unite!") and Sergio De La Torre enable them to successfully tackle challenges many would consider hopeless. Refusing pity, these women exhibit a determination and faith in the future that can only be described as uplifting.” – Jay Weissberg, Variety (2006, 68 min., US/Mexico, in Spanish with English subtitles)
“The Killer Bargain referred to by this hard-hitting documentary’s title is the availability of cheap consumer goods, imported by Western companies, whose prices don’t reflect the actual human and environmental costs associated with their production in the developing world. Consumers remain largely unaware of the conditions under which the goods they buy are produced; this film makes those connections shockingly clear. While some retailers and manufacturers refuse to talk to the filmmakers, workers, doctors and scientists testify eloquently to the tremendous human costs of globalization. The film takes as a case study the production of textiles in northern India, from the growing of cotton, through the dying of cloth to its final sale as towels and sheets in European and American stores.” – California Newsreel (D. Tom Heinemann, 2006, 57 min., English, Danish, and Hindi with English subtitles)
About the artists:
GLOBALIZATION DOUBLE FEATURE! MAQUILAPOLIS: CITY OF FACTORIES AN
“Maquiladoras are the multi-national factories in Tijuana and other border points, where slightly better than average wages lure tens of thousands of women workers into becoming anonymous, and expendable, cogs in the globalization machine. Though Mexican labor laws are geared toward the workforce, the country casts a laissez-faire eye on corporations like Sony and Panasonic. The result has been a judicial outrage and an environmental disaster. Workers' rights are ignored, and the amount of toxic waste spewed into the surrounding area leaves residents with a litany of chronic health problems. Though other docus have focused on the maquiladoras, none have made the workers interactive players in their own presentation, as the helmers do here. By making the women themselves an integral part of the filmmaking process, directors Vicky Funari ("Live Nude Girls Unite!") and Sergio De La Torre enable them to successfully tackle challenges many would consider hopeless. Refusing pity, these women exhibit a determination and faith in the future that can only be described as uplifting.” – Jay Weissberg, Variety (2006, 68 min., US/Mexico, in Spanish with English subtitles)
“The Killer Bargain referred to by this hard-hitting documentary’s title is the availability of cheap consumer goods, imported by Western companies, whose prices don’t reflect the actual human and environmental costs associated with their production in the developing world. Consumers remain largely unaware of the conditions under which the goods they buy are produced; this film makes those connections shockingly clear. While some retailers and manufacturers refuse to talk to the filmmakers, workers, doctors and scientists testify eloquently to the tremendous human costs of globalization. The film takes as a case study the production of textiles in northern India, from the growing of cotton, through the dying of cloth to its final sale as towels and sheets in European and American stores.” – California Newsreel (D. Tom Heinemann, 2006, 57 min., English, Danish, and Hindi with English subtitles)
