Ole Schulz

The film „Workers“ from José Luis Valle in the Panorama section tells the story of two wage-dependent persons in the Mexican border town of Tijuana. Rafael (Jesús Padilla) has been a cleaner for 30 years in a sterile light-bulb factory. Next day he should receive his pension – but then they refused it to him, because he is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador. Lidia (Susana Salazar) on the other hand is a maid of a rich, critically ill Mexican. This „Patrona” only loves her skinny greyhound and let feed her with best filet from golden bowls. When the woman dies, she hands down everything to the beloved dog, her „princesa” – the staff has to carry on their normal job live, as if nothing had happened, to not losing their employment…

The movie shows the story of the two different working poor in a parallel way. Where both characters are connected which each other is their – apparent – dedication for their work, especially an obsession for cleaning, even scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush. You don´t see too much of Tijuana in the film, but enough to get a good feeling of this… weird place at the border to the United States.

„Workers” is not a film of many words. Quite the contrary, it tells the story of the two tight-lipped working heroes in pronounced and beautiful long takes, and the camera is observing everything – even details – with a lot of time.           

„Workers“ is the first fiction movie from José Luis Valle as a director and without question a lovely film, with humorous elements, too – and with a maybe not totally believable, but really surprising end, which we won´t tell. Valle explains after the screening it´s based on true stories.

The film has been co-financed by the Berlinale’s World Cinema Fund (WCF). Founded in 2004, the WCF has an annual budget of around € 400,000 to support the production and distribution of feature films and documentaries from such regions as Latin America, Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and the Caucasus. And here is the good news: At the end of January the German Federal Cultural Foundation (KSB) decided to assume responsibility for funding the WCF for the next five years.

Fortunately we can expect that after „Workers“ at least José Luis Valle won´t need the Funds help anymore.

Ole Schulz