In Maquilapolis - City of Factories, women workers in Tijuana's assembly factories put human faces on the effects of globalization on their lives and their city --  environmental devastation, infrastructure chaos, and glaring violations of human and labor rights.

Maquilapolis - City of Factories was featured in ITVS' 2010 Women's Empowerment Summer Screening Series and will be broadcast on PBS beginning September 19, 2010 on Global Voices on PBS. Click here for more information.

Vicky Funari, Producer

Vicky Funari’s filmmaking focuses on the lives of working people and on the complex identities of today’s culturally mixed and dynamic migratory populations. Funari produced, directed and edited the acclaimed nonfiction feature film Paulina, which has screened in more than thirty of the world’s most prestigious film festivals and won numerous awards. Paulina aired on the Sundance Channel in 2000.

Funari also co-directed and edited Live Nude Girls Unite!, an account of the first successful strippers’ union in the country, which premiered at the 2000 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival and aired on Cinemax in 2001. Her other credits include skin.es.the.si.a, an award-winning experimental short.

Funari, who lives in Vallejo, California, served on the board of directors of the Latino media arts organization Cine Accion from 1996 to 2000.

Sergio De La Torre, Producer

Sergio De La Torre is a photographer and a performance and installation artist who grew up in the Tijuana/San Diego border area. His works have focused on issues regarding diaspora, tourism, and identity politics. In 1995, De La Torre co-founded the performance/installation group Los Tricksters. He has also produced collaborative works with artist and writer Coco Fusco for a variety of venues including street fairs, academic conferences, art galleries, and film festivals.

De La Torre’s works, including Access Denied, Disappearing, and Mexiclone, have appeared in the Bienal Barro de America at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas, Venezuela; in the Cleveland Performance Art Festival; at the El Tapango Centro Cultural in Mexico City; and in San Francisco at the DeYoung Museum and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. His film and video work has included photography for the film La Raza, directed by Adolfo Dávila, and serving as the assistant to the art director on Garden of Eden, directed by Maria Novaro. He lives in Oakland, California.

• Global Voices/PBS
  http://www.itvs.org/films/maquilapolis-city-of-factories
• Maquilapolis website
  http://www.maquilapolis.com/
• Workers’ Information Center, Tijuana MEXICO
  http://cittac.org/

t21: What inspired you to make Maquilapolis?
VF & SDT:We began the Maquila Project in 2000, by inviting factory workers in Tijuana and community organizations in Mexico and the U.S. to join us in creating a film that depicts globalization through the eyes of the women who live on its leading edge. We wanted to engage in a collaborative process that would break with the traditional documentary practice of dropping into a location, shooting and leaving with the "goods," which would only repeat the pattern of the maquiladora itself. We sought to merge art-making with community development and to ensure that the film's voice would be truly that of its subjects.
As to our personal motivations for making this film, we are both artists who believe that art can and does participate in a cultural dialogue concerning social change and justice. Our work is informed by our own hybrid lives: Vicky is a U.S. citizen who grew up in four countries and six cities, including Mexico City. Sergio is a U.S. and Mexican citizen who was raised in Tijuana and migrated to the San Francisco Bay Area as an adult. Our work on Maquilapolis is part of our ongoing investigations into biculturality, migration, gender, and labor.

t21: Biggest obstacle in making it?
VF: Tijuana is a hard place to work. When you are organizing community video workshops for factory workers who live in neighborhoods with unpaved streets, no electricity, and often no phone service, you can't take anything for granted. Before you can teach them how to shoot documentary video, you have to figure out how to get them to the workshop, set up daycare for their kids, try to be sure they won't get fired for participating in the project, and more. But any obstacles we faced as filmmakers were nothing in comparison with the daily obstacles these women faced in just living and working and raising their kids.

t21: Most inspiring subject you met while creating this project?
VF: All the factory worker/activists who appear in the film and collaborated on its production were inspiring to me. After the film was done, a core group of women went on to travel extensively with the film, share their experiences with audiences, and promote the causes of labor rights, women's rights, and environmental justice. Lourdes Lujan, Yesenia Palomares, Carmen Duran, Tere Loyola, Natty Guizar, and Lupita Castañeda have all inspired me greatly, and I feel fortunate to be able to call these women colleagues and friends.

t21: What do you hope viewers will take away from it?
VF: I long ago realized that my films were not going to topple global patriarchy or global capitalism. But I do hope that viewers are engaged and activated by the film -- I'd like my work to encourage dialogue, reflection, and action towards change.

t21: If you were not a filmmake,r what would you be?
VF: A goat farmer. A beekeeper. A sailor. A marine biologist. Or about 40 other things that seem irresistibly great to me -- but I have only had time for one life so far.

t21: Last song that was stuck in your head?
VF: The Oscar Meyer Weiner ad jingle from the 1970s. My baloney has a first name... etc. So catchy. Thank you for the loss of that precious brain space, Oscar Meyer!

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