The Hand that Feeds

— BY Rachel Lears, Robin Blotnick

status

Completed

type

Nonfiction

year

2014

director

Rachel Lears, Robin Blotnick

producers

Rachel Lears, Robin Blotnick

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Synopsis

At a popular bakery café, residents of New York’s Upper East Side get bagels and coffee served with a smile 24 hours a day. But behind the scenes, undocumented immigrant workers face sub-legal wages, dangerous machinery, and abusive managers who will fire them for calling in sick. Mild-mannered sandwich maker Mahoma L√≥pez has never been interested in politics, but in January 2012, he convinces a small group of his co-workers to fight back. Risking deportation and the loss of their livelihood, the workers team up with a diverse crew of innovative young organizers and take the unusual step of forming their own independent union, launching themselves on a journey that will test the limits of their resolve. In one roller-coaster year, they must overcome a shocking betrayal and a two-month lockout. Lawyers will battle in back rooms, Occupy Wall Street protesters will take over the restaurant, and a picket line will divide the neighborhood. If they can win a contract, it will set a historic precedent for low-wage workers across the country. But whatever happens, Mahoma and his coworkers will never be exploited again.

About the team

Rachel Lears‘ (Director, Producer) award-winning first feature documentary Birds of Passage (2010) was supported by Fulbright and the National Film Institute of Uruguay, had two community screening tours of Uruguay sponsored by the Ministry of Education and Culture, and was broadcast nationally throughout Latin America. Her ongoing video art collaborations with artist Saya Woolfalk have screened at numerous galleries and museums worldwide since 2008. Rachel was a 2013 Sundance Creative Producing Fellow, and also holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from NYU.

Robin Blotnick‘s (Director, Producer) first documentary, Chocolate Country (2006), received a Grand Jury Prize at the Seattle International Film Festival, was a winner in LinkTV’s ViewChange competition, and is used as a teaching tool by educators and Fair Trade advocates around the world. His feature documentary debut, Gods and Kings (2012), about masks, magic, and media in the highlands of Guatemala, recently won the Intangible Culture Prize at the RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Films (Scotland, 2013) and was the opening night film at Ethnocineca (Vienna, 2014). Robin is also a 2013 Sundance Creative Producing Fellow.

The Hand That Feeds is a Cinereach grantee.

About the team

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