Double Oscar winner Barbara Kopple has completed her trilogy on labor rights with “Union Town,” her new documentary on the modern American labor movement. After screenings at Venice and Toronto, the film now heads to the Ji.hlava Documentary Film Festival, where Variety spoke to her about the project.
“I guess I’ve always been drawn to stories about people fighting for dignity and fairness in their lives,” Kopple said. “They are my heroes.”
‘Union Town’ Documentary: UPS, Amazon and the Deliveristas
Shot over three years beginning in 2023, “Union Town” follows three groups of workers: UPS drivers in the Teamsters preparing for a possible strike as a new five-year contract deadline loomed, Amazon warehouse workers fighting to organize, and largely immigrant app-based food delivery couriers — the “deliveristas” — battling deactivations and dangerous working conditions in New York.
Barbara Kopple’s Labor Trilogy: Harlan County, American Dream, Union Town
The film completes a trilogy that began with the 1976 classic “Harlan County, USA” about a Kentucky coal miners’ strike and continued with “American Dream” (1990) about Hormel meatpacking workers — both Oscar winners for Best Documentary.
Critics have praised the film’s empathetic look at the gig economy, with Screen Daily noting it lands somewhere between the victory of Harlan County and the defeat of American Dream — modest contract gains, app deactivations, and a closing shot of a parcel-sorting robot at a UPS hub.
Barbara Kopple (Credits: Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival)
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Source: Variety — read the full story there.
