To create MAQUILAPOLIS, the filmmakers brought together factory workers in Tijuana and community organizations in Mexico and the U.S. to collaborate on a film that depicts globalization through the eyes of the women who live on its leading edge.  The factory workers who appear in the film have been involved in every stage of production, from planning to shooting, from scripting to outreach.  The film centers on Carmen, who works the graveyard shift in one of Tijuana’s maquiladoras, the multinationally-owned factories that came to Mexico for its cheap labor.  After making television components all night, Carmen comes home to a shack she built out of recycled garage doors, in a neighborhood with no sewage lines or electricity.  Carmen and her colleague Lourdes reach beyond the daily struggle for survival to organize for change, and the world changes too:  a global economic crisis and the availability of cheaper labor in China begin to pull the factories away from Tijuana, leaving Carmen, Lourdes and their colleagues with an uncertain future. 

San Diego: July 6. Full details here.