Documentary,
6:00 minutes,
English,
QC,
2008
Synopsis
In the spring of 2008, car wash workers throughout Los Angeles began an unprecedented campaign to unionize the informal workers of a multi-million dollar industry rampant with exploitation.
Most of these workers are undocumented migrants whose aspirations have led them to washing cars in the city of angels.
This experimental documentary, shot in super8 film, journeys into a city defined by as much by cars as it is immigrant labor to offer a evocative commentary on the relationship between class, place, and work.
Creative team
Writer/director/producer: Brett Story
Personal statement
Filmmaker Brett Story says:
"The Great Khan contemplates an empire covered with cities that weigh upon the earth and upon mankind, crammed with wealth and traffic, overladen with ornaments and offices, complicated with mechanisms and hierarchies, swollen, tense, ponderous."
- Italo Calvino, from Invisible Cities
Brett Story
Brett is a filmmaker and writer who divides her time between Montreal and New York City.
She is currently working on a feature length film about the crisis of blue-collar workers in a petrochemical town in Southern Ontario, as well as a series of short experimental films about the meaning of the city, which she's shooting in super8.
Her films have been screened at numerous festivals and her writing has appeared in publications such as the Nation Magazine, This magazine, and the Montreal Mirror.