Maquilas
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Directed by Isabella Sandri & Giuseppe M. Gaudino / creative documentary / prod. Fandango in collaboration with Legambiente, RAI-Radiotelevisione Italiana, Rome and Genoa Metropolitan Areas / 112 min. / DV Cam, Beta SP / 2004 / Italy
Il Film
“ 'Capital is smart. It goes where it has to go. Capital is smart.' I heard this a long time ago and I’ve never forgotten it. 'Capital goes where it has to go'. "
This is what says one of the heads of the Maquiladoras Association in Ciudad Juarez, a city in the middle of the desert, in the North of Mexico.
Ciudad Juarez is also the city where hundreds of women have been found hacked to pieces, for the most part workers in the ‘maquilas’ these border factories. The film is a lengthy journey into the inferno of people who come from a sort of paradise, that of the peasant villages of Chiapas, a paradise that has been gutted by the free trade agreements. It is shown at the Turin Festival where it wins the Special Jury Prize and the Cipputi Prize for best documentary on the world of work.
Synopsis
“Capital is smart. It goes where it has to go.” This is what says one of the heads of the Maquiladoras Association in Ciudad Juarez, a city in the middle of the desert, in the North of Mexico, where illegal immigrants get rejected after having failed to pass the Rio Bravo to go to the USA. Foreign money has built about 400 factories (the Maquilas), because Ciudad Juarez is a very convenient city, where one can have everything paying very little or nothing at all. Here is where the farmers coming from the South can reach their dreams, working with terrible rhythms: buy a car or a house made with concrete blocks. This is the only chance they get from the free-trade politics of Mexicans government allowed by the agreements on free-trade made by USA, Canada, Japan, Europe and the WTO.
Credits
Screenplay Isabella Sandri & Giuseppe M. Gaudino
Photography and cameramen Isabella Sandri & Giuseppe M. Gaudino
Production organizer Benedetta Tobagi
Editing Rosella Mocci
Music Epsilon Indi
Fandango production Fabrizio Grosoli
Cast
Felix Leonardo Perez
Adriana Linares Ernandez
Los Zorros del Desierto:
Juan Rivera 'Pastor'
Epifanio Diaz Suares 'Norteno'
Juana Chew Medina 'Chapiz'
Karina Maria Diaz Chew 'Chapilla'
Rubicel Montiel 'Pantera'
Paula Flores Bonilla 'Saltena'
Josefina Gonzalez
Maribel Lopez Gomez
Juan Carlos Magdaleno Torres
Ignazia Lopez
Mario Morales Nanduca
Maria del Pilar Ramos Rieto