10 June, 2009The third annual Geneva Labour Film Shorts Festival features fourteen films from around the world produced by, for, and about unions and working people.
GENEVA: The struggle for precarious workers to win equality on the job takes centre stage at the third annual Geneva Labour Film Shorts Festival, featuring films that tell the story of irregular workers in Korea and the drastic measures they take to be heard; the fight for equality among contract workers in India; the struggle of migrant workers living outside of Tel Aviv in an abandoned shopping mall; and union successes in organising EPZ workers.
A film about undocumented Burmese migrant fishers was awarded Best Labour Film Short of 2009 by the film festival jury. The film, Abandoned, not forgotten: the plight of Burma's migrant fishers, produced by the International Transport Workers' Federation, exposes the brutal treatment of migrant workers from Burma who work in Thailand's billion dollar export fishing industry.
Other films to be shown address the need to defend independent media, union strategies to end child labour, the need for maternity protection for women workers and a united steelworkers' response to the global financial crisis.
This year's jury is made up of members of the Global Union Communicator's Task Force, representing global union federations and the International Confederation of Trade Unions.
The event will take place in downtown Geneva at the historic Grütli Theatre (rue du General-Dufour 16) on 16 June from 19h00 to 22h00, a reception begins at 18h30 to welcome filmgoers. The festival is hosted by all global union federations, the ITUC and TUAC. The films are in English or have English subtitles and admission is free.
For more information and film programme, visit the festival website at: http://www.labourfilmshorts.org/