A storm is brewing. Amazon workers have spent countless days and nights camped outside the company’s Staten Island warehouse, rallying support for their newly formed union. Fierce gusts of wind threaten to tear away their tent, while harsh industrial lights cast a cold glare over the scene. Suddenly, the two filmmakers step forward, abandoning their role as passive observers, to lend a hand. It is an act of solidarity, a lasting image. While Jeff Bezos is planning a trip to Mars, tensions are rising among his former employees. Over sizzling sausages, labour organisers attempt to mobilise more workers. The loudest is Chris Smalls. He puts himself and the movement in the limelight and still tends to his family at night: always driven, always defiant. Amazon has brought together a diverse mix: the homeless man, the committed student and countless others suddenly left jobless. But cracks are beginning to show within the community, as a conversation between two women demonstrates. Is Smalls drowning them out or can his polarising style amplify their cause? Brett Story and Stephen Maing embrace these ambiguities, and we are drawn into a labour struggle unlike anything seen on screen before. In a world where tech-billionaires rule governments and exploitative labour practices are hailed as success stories, this is the kind of cinema we need – one that reminds us that
the long fight for democracy is one worth waging.

In cooperation with Verdi.