Where Labor Holds The Upper Hand

With More Films to Choose From, D.C. Fest Organizer Was Working Overtime

The American labor movement has been in decline or disarray over the past 20 years, as it seeks to respond to increasing moves toward privatization, globalization and weakened labor laws. But while the working class may be embattled in real life, it's enjoying something of a golden age on the big screen.

When Chris Garlock, a coordinator with the Metropolitan Washington Council of the AFL-CIO, started the DC Labor FilmFest seven years ago, the pickings were slim. "Everybody thought we'd be showing 'Silkwood,' 'Matewan,' 'The Salt of the Earth' and maybe 'Hoffa,' " he recalls. "And the truth was that there were plenty of films from around the world that dealt with workers and workers' issues, but it was still a narrow field."

In recent years, Garlock says, he's seen more feature films dealing with labor issues, from "Fast Food Nation" to "Blood Diamond." But this year, he says, "it just exploded. I must have screened 150 films, and for the first time, it was really difficult to get the list down. I wound up choosing 30 films, which is more than twice as many as we've ever shown before."

The movies in this year's festival, which begins today, include a comedy about a Japanese mining town trying to recover from the loss of 2,000 jobs and a French drama about a young consultant preparing a company for downsizing. But the centerpiece is this evening's opening night film, "It's a Free World . . . ," by the granddaddy of labor films, Ken Loach. Set in contemporary London, the movie tells the story of Angie (played by Kierston Wareing in a sensational breakout performance), a labor subcontractor who becomes gradually embroiled in the world of illegal migrant labor.

The subject has driven feature films before, most notably in "El Norte," "Dirty Pretty Things," "In This World" and the upcoming "Under the Same Moon," not to mention Loach's own union organizing drama, "Bread and Roses." In some ways, "It's a Free World . . . " serves as a sequel to that 2000 movie, examining how globalization and trade liberalization have with dizzying speed transformed the lives of working people.

Loach's longtime collaborator, screenwriter Paul Laverty, explains that after working on a period piece, the team was eager to get back to the present. "We were very keen after 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley' to try to capture something that was very contemporary and had the whiff of the moment about it," Laverty said recently from his home in London. "There are so many changes happening now, in matters of transport and distribution, and we've always wondered what's going on in these warehouses and distribution centers and supermarkets."

Laverty is referring to the temporary labor force, largely composed of immigrants from Eastern Europe, that has served as the anonymous engine of Britain's post-Thatcher economic boom, nicknamed the "Anglo-Saxon miracle" by the country's politicians and economists. Laverty interviewed workers in Birmingham, Aberdeen and Welsh border towns to research "It's a Free World . . . " and came away with a decidedly different take on the miracle. "They talk about modernization and flexibility," he says, referring to the champions of liberalization, "and of course what we began to realize is that many of those new modernized, flexible workers had lost the rights trade unions had gained many years ago. So there's nothing modernizing about it at all. It's regressive, really."

In "It's a Free World . . .," Angie -- a feisty, attractive blonde in her early 30s -- is portrayed sympathetically at first. As an employee of a labor recruitment company, she's exploited by her male bosses to the point that she's fired for spurning their brutish advances. When she sets up shop on her own with a friend, she must make her way in a male world, herding immigrant workers into work teams behind a pub and hustling them into vans. Although a stickler for proper documentation at first, Angie is convinced by a colleague that she can make more money by looking the other way. As the film follows Angie's inch-by-inch descent into the shady world of illegal immigration, it never demonizes her as much as it asks the viewers to locate themselves on the sliding ethical scale.

Laverty first imagined Angie as "equal parts attractive and equal parts repellent," he says. "She's just following the logic of a system, really. We can understand why she makes these decisions. And in a strange way, she's kind of bloody-mindedly honest about it, [whereas] most people refuse to recognize that our standard of living is so subsidized by exploited labor, sometimes bordering on slavery."

In addition to "It's a Free World . . . ," which is part of a featured mini-retrospective of Loach's work, the festival will screen "Outsourced," about an American middle manager (Josh Hamilton) who travels to India to train his replacement. "If I had told anybody two years ago that we would have not only a feature film about outsourcing, but a romantic comedy about outsourcing, they would have laughed," Garlock says. (The festival will also screen the comedies "Hula Girls" and "Office Space," the dramas "Strike" and "Work Hard, Play Hard" and the documentary "Our Daily Bread.") The DC Labor FilmFest is organized by the Metropolitan Washington Council of the AFL-CIO, the Debs-Jones-Douglass Institute and the American Film Institute.

The range of subject matter and genre reflects a growing trend of sophistication in films about labor, according to Garlock, who adds that the trend doesn't seem like a flash in the pan, especially in light of the recent recalls of products made in China. "People are getting very interested in, 'Where's our stuff coming from and who's making it and what kind of conditions are they living and working under?' " he says. "Those are no longer academic questions, or of interest only to people in the union movement. Your toy may have lead in it because of the stuff we've been talking about for years."

2007 DC Labor FilmFest begins tonight at 7 with a screening of "It's a Free World . . . " (proceeds benefit the D.C. Employment Justice Center) and concludes Sunday. Films will be shown at AFI Silver Theatre, 8633 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring. Call 301-495-6720 or visit http://www.afi.com/silver and http://www.dclabor.org.