In the midst of SF summer, hundreds of people abandoned the coveted sunny weather to pack into a sold-out Roxie Theater for the one-night-only 20th-anniversary screening of “MAQUILÁPOLIS” (2006). A roaring applause smattered with joyous cheers of support rang from the theater as the credits rolled. The audience seemed to swell with a sense of collective effervescence and pride for the filmmakers, the film’s protagonists and the inspiring message of agency for feminist, workers rights and environmental justice activism.
Professor Sergio De La Torre, Chair of the Art and Architecture Department at USF and Founder and Co-Director of the Sanctuary City Project, co-directed the documentary “MAQUILÁPOLIS” [City of Factories] with filmmaker and editor Vicky Funari.
“We would like to thank Sergio’s employer, USF, for making this happen today,” Funari announced before the screening. She thanked the university for its donations which made it possible for two of the film’s protagonists and collaborative filmmakers, Lourdes Luján and Yesenia Palomares, to travel from Tijuana for the screening of the film’s 20th anniversary tour, which traveled throughout Mexico this summer. De La Torre said that the film resonates with USF’s mission at large in its discussion of “social justice and human rights issues.”
The documentary follows several of Tijuana’s “promotoras”: women factory workers who banded together to advocate for workers rights and social justice. After the North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada in 1994 removed tariffs and opened up trade between the countries and with overseas companies, multinational corporations established mass amounts of factories in Tijuana to capitalize on cheap labor opportunities. Though this created a large amount of jobs, bringing many of the film’s subjects to Tijuana in search of better job opportunities, Mexican workers were exploited and underpaid and communities were polluted and kept impoverished. These factories, like Panasonic and Sanyo named in the film, are called “maquiladoras” because they are foreign-owned and produce goods for export. As globalization developed in the early 2000s, manufacturing largely moved overseas, leaving communities in economic disarray and workers without severance pay. The corrupt government and international companies allowed for poor working conditions and severe health and safety crises, which consumed Tijuana’s neighborhoods.
An anxiety-inducing shot in the film shows a child running into an ominously dark puddle to retrieve his ball as his mother, Carmen Duran, narrates that the neighborhood children play amongst infectious, sewage filled groundwater and cracking knots of exposed electrical wire. Wide shots of streets in factory worker neighborhoods show patchwork-houses made from garage doors. These striking images immerse viewers in the physical damages that this economic and governmental structure has caused Tijuana.
In making the film, De La Torre and Funari worked with existing nonprofits and activist groups where women were organizing to educate themselves and advocate for their communities. De La Torre and Funari trained these women to use video cameras to document their stories and activist work, involving them in each step of the production process and making them co-collaborators of the film. Both directors deeply value artistic collaboration for its ability to share autonomy of the film with the women living and carrying-out its story.
“This is the kind of stuff that documentaries should be about, you know, real things, real people, real impact… [they] did a very interesting thing, giving all these women video cameras to empower them and tell their own stories, which is, like– that’s genius” said Dan Holzner, an attendee at the showing.
Through the raw and intimate visuals representing life from multiple perspectives in Tijuana’s industrial hubs, the emotion and experiences of the “promotoras” were poetically brought to life on the screen.
Attendee and filmmaker John Longyear commented that, “The switching between the choreographed movement and the point of view diary style filmmaking was really effective,” in communicating the film’s message.
In a powerful choreographed demonstration, the “promotoras” stand in a line, replicating the repetitive hand motions of one of their assembly line stations at the factory. This concept, repeated throughout the film, was inspired by the directors’ observation of the women habitually making these movements in conversation. Funari explained in a post-screening Q&A that through this choice, they aimed to create a visual language that communicated the way that through globalization, “Human beings become components, pieces of land become components,” and companies “don’t actually care about trashing the body of the person who’s doing the work because there’s always another body ready to be plugged into that spot.”
Global Impact
Upon its release in 2006, the film showed at hundreds of festivals around the world. As the filmmakers and “promotoras” traveled, it became apparent that the issues caused by globalization are shared by communities around the world. For example, “When you go to Korea, to Seoul, and you see a nonprofit dealing with similar issues that you are dealing with in Tijuana,” De La Torre said. Korean factory workers had questions for the “promotoras” about how to deal with government agencies and organize the fight for labor rights. “The workers were also going through the same process. So it was beautiful to see them converse.” The film was used as a catalyst for creating discussion and mobilizing global communities through their Binational Community Impact Campaign.
Revisiting the film 20 years later, the themes of labor rights, gender, environmental justice and multinational corporate exploitation are still painfully relevant to communities globally, including our own.
Jasmine Woo, Roxie patron, said that she was drawn to attend the screening because of the intersection of female activists mobilizing together and the fight for workers rights.
In a post-film Q&A, both directors, Luján, and Palomares were joined by moderator and translator Ximena Briceño, Stanford University Professor. Luján shared that exploitation and violations of labor rights persist in her community in Tijuana. Although the “promotoras” were very proud of their success in winning settlements from corporations and making progress for their communities in environmental protection legislation, the fight for labor rights continues as the government lacks systemic change to protect citizens. “Unfortunately, things haven’t changed in terms of factory work,” De La Torre said.
The screening was a benefit for Refugee and Immigrant Transitions (RIT), a local Bay Area nonprofit that provides education and community support for refugees to assist their transition into new communities.
After the film, Jane Pak, co-executive director at RIT and Professor of USF’s Masters of Migration Studies program, was called to the stage to represent RIT. “I’ve seen this film three times… And each time I walk away with at least 3 things.” Pak said. “One: universal human rights, those that are respected, those that are not… Second: the resistance and the collectivity and the work of the women that exist and have through eternity. And third: the trust and the mutual respect that is required in such a profound artistic film that uplifts stories, in ways that are not unidimensional, but rather nuanced and whole, that holds humor, power, and challenge.”
Several USF departments sponsored this event: The Ann Getty Institute, Art and Architecture, Masters of Fine Arts in Writing, Global Studies, Performing Arts and Social Justice, and Masters of Art in Migration Studies.
