MAQUILAPOLIS

CITY OF FACTORIES

USA/Mexico 2006 • Director: Vicky Funari & Sergio De La Torre • 70 minutes • Spanish with English Subtitles

Festivals: Rotterdam, Tribeca, Hot Docs, Seattle, Karlovy Vary 2006

Carmen works the graveyard shift in one of Tijuana’s 800 maquiladoras, the multinationally-owned factories that came to Mexico for its cheap labour. After making television components all night, Carmen comes home to a shack she built out of recycled garage doors, in a neighbourhood with no sewage lines or electricity. She suffers from kidney damage and lead poisoning from her years of exposure to toxic chemicals. She earns six dollars a day. But Carmen is not a victim. She is a dynamic young woman, busy making a life for herself and her children.

As Carmen and a million other maquiladora workers produce televisions, electrical cables, toys, clothes, computer keyboards, batteries, and IV tubes, they weave the very fabric of life for consumer nations. They also confront labour violations, environmental devastation, and urban chaos — life on the frontier of the global economy.

In Maquilapolis, Carmen and her friend Lourdes reach beyond the daily struggle for survival to organise for change: Carmen takes a major television manufacturer to task for violating her labour rights. Lourdes pressures the government to clean up a toxic waste dump left behind by a departing factory. The women also use video cameras to document their lives, their city, and their hopes for the future.

As they work for change, the world changes too: a global economic crisis and the availability of cheaper labour in China begin to pull the factories away from Tijuana, leaving Carmen, Lourdes and their colleagues with an uncertain future.

Screenings

Wellington	Friday 9 May, 6.15pm	Saturday 10 May, 8.15pm
Auckland	Friday 16 May, 6.15pm	Saturday 17 May, 8.15pm
Christchurch	Friday 23 May, 6.15pm	Saturday 24 May, 8.15pm
Dunedin	Friday 30 May, 6.15pm	Saturday 31 May, 8.15pm

Related

WESTERN SAHARA

OCCUPATION 101

NOW THE PEOPLE HAVE AWOKEN

2008 Dates

Wellington 8 - 16 May
Paramount Theatre

Auckland 15 - 23 May
Rialto Newmarket

Christchurch 22 - 30 May
Regent on Worcester

Dunedin 29 May - 6 June
Rialto Dunedin