Inquiry with impact
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Fruits of Labor Film Screening
October 27, 2022 @ 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Landmark’s Del Mar Theatre, 1124 Pacific Avenue, Santa Cruz, CA
SOLD OUT
FRUITS OF LABOR is an award-winning and nationally-televised film, which was filmed in Watsonville and follows Ashley, a Mexican-American teenager, who dreams of graduating high school and going to college. But when ICE raids threaten her family, Ashley is forced to become the breadwinner, working days in the strawberry fields and nights at a food processing company. The screening will include a discussion with the filmmaker, Emily Cohen Ibañez.
This free film screening is sponsored by the UCSC Institute for Social Transformation as a part of the All-In: Co-Creating Knowledge for Justice Conference. This special event is open to conference goers and the general public.
FRUITS OF LABOR
A film by Emily Cohen Ibañez
A Mexican-American teenager dreams of graduating high school, when increased ICE raids in her community threaten to separate her family and force her to become the breadwinner for her family. She works long days in the strawberry fields and the night shift at a food processing factory.
Set in an agricultural town on the central coast of California, Fruits of Labor is a coming of age story about an American teenager traversing the seen and unseen forces that keep her family trapped in poverty. A lyrical meditation on adolescence, nature and ancestral forces, the film asks, what does it mean to come into one’s power as a working young woman of color in the wealthiest nation in the world?
Fruits of Labor is a character driven account that explores universal themes of how a young woman navigates family obligation and the desire to pursue her dreams in the predicaments of our times. In Ashley’s case her dream is to be the first in her family to graduate high school and go to college. From Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Are Watching God to Aurora Guerrero’s film Mosquita y Mari, women artists have called attention to the daily oppressions and personal desires of women; the political is expressed in the private intimacies of falling in love, the burdens of domestic life, and the desire for personal freedom and dignity.
Most documentary films about farmworkers look at public personas–the political is in the rally, the strike, and the public speech. Fruits of Labor offers a new narrative about women workers that shows the nuances of how the global food system intersects with gender and family life.
Visit the Fruits of Labor website and follow @FruitsofLaborFilm on social media to learn more:
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