The Workers Cup

Bahadur: The Accidental Brave

November 2011 •English

Far West Nepal, where maximum labour migration to Bombay happens, is reeling under the impact of an HIV micro epidemic. This documentary is an in depth look into the brave Nepalese migrants’ life in a social, economic and political context.

La Vie sans Brahim

January 2003 •French

Atlal (Remnants)

Invalid date •English

'Atlal (Remnants)' is a fictional documentary that follows Bassam, a Palestinian man in his fifties, on a journey between the past and present. An abandoned school, the remains of a beach club, and a dusty cinema hold Bassam's cherished memories from his life in Qatar. Through personal archives and interviews with Bassam and his wife, Laila, we get a deeper look into their stories—slowly revealing the dismaying thoughts behind Bassam's nostalgia.

The Lucky Woman

October 2020 •Vietnamese

This film follows the lives of undocumented Vietnamese workers in Taiwan doing odd jobs to survive, after having been forced to flee their employers due to harsh working conditions and lack of medical care. How will living this way for more than a decade shape their lives?

The Blueberry Blues

Invalid date •French

Summer unveils a new blueberry season in northern Canada. The fields are covered in blue and workers from all over scramble before the frost puts an end to the harvest. And yet this time of year is much more than just picking: it's a time of music and connection.

Alamanya, Alamanya - Germania, Germania

January 1979 •German

A train is heading for Germany - a train carrying migrant workers. Trains like this have come countless times since the late 1950s, from Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Spain and Portugal, and they have brought with them, along with the people they carried, the dreams and hopes of these people for a better life and better work opportunities. In Germany, they were called guest workers.

Migrant Mother

May 2021 •English

Migranta tells the stories of Vicky, Betty and Lety, (three mothers who have come to Canada from Mexico as part of the federal government’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program) as they face calculated risks, difficult choices and harsh realities while navigating, work and life in Canada while being separated from families and communities they support.

Perdus entre deux rives, les Chibanis oubliés

July 2014 •French

The Charcoal People

January 2000 •Portuguese

This deeply human documentary examines the subject of environmental destruction, highlighting the impoverished migrant workers who are chopping down the Amazon rainforest to create charcoal for pig iron production used primarily in the automobile industry. The film examines the children and elders and their daily lives and work as they burn timber in igloo-looking huts, their bodies charred gray for $2 a day, struggling to survive.

See You, Lovable Strangers

October 2017 •Chinese

Follows Vietnamese migrant workers, to examine the reasons behind their numerous escapes and to trace the family situations of those who were deported from Taiwan.

Once Upon a Time

March 2014 •Kurdish

Every year, a Kurdish family leaves Gaziantep (Anatolia) to work on the land near Ankara. This thankless life of seasonal labor turns upside down when the eldest son falls in love.

Les messagers

March 2014 •French

From the Sahara to Mellila, witnesses talk about how they narrowly escaped death, unlike their companions - all migrants who were literally and symbolically swallowed up by the frontier.

Youth (Spring)

November 2023 •Chinese

This film was shot between 2014 and 2019 in the town of Zhili, a district of Huzhou City in Zhejiang province, China. Zhili is home to over 18,000 privately-run workshops producing children's clothes, mostly for the domestic market, but some also for export. The workshops employ around 300,000 migrant workers, chiefly from the rural provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan and Jiangsu.

A Thousand Pines

September 2023 •English

In this tale of labor and family that shines a light on the precarity of temporary work visas, Raymundo Morales leads a crew of workers who have to make the challenging decision to leave their families in rural Mexico to plant commercial pine forests in the United States.

Between Pudukkottai & Singapore

November 2017 •Tamil

This short documentary features poet N Rengarajan, a migrant worker from Pudukkottai, India who sustains a practice of poetry as a way of life while working in the construction sector in Singapore. The film, structured around three of his poems, seeks to visually mirror the rhythm and tone of his writing. Together, verse and visuals strive to draw attention to the poet's acute illuminations of the realities of migrant life.

Farewell Ferris Wheel

November 2016 •English

Farewell Ferris Wheel explores how the U.S. Carnival industry fights to keep itself alive by legally employing Mexican migrant workers with the controversial H-2B guestworker visa.

Beyond Ratings

February 2024 •Hindi

Three women share their experience of navigating the app-world in the metro city. The sharings reveal gendered battles as platform workers and the tiresome reality of gig-workers' identities against the absent bosses, masked behind their apps. Filmed in the streets of New Delhi, the protagonists share about their door-to-door gigs, the surveillance at their workplaces and the absence of accountability in the urban landscape.

I Am Golden Karen

Invalid date •English

I AM GOLDEN KAREN is a coming-of-age story of Thaawa, a Karen refugee in search of his identity as a migrant in Thailand. In between puberty and adulthood, he nurtures a strong desire to return to his motherland, Karen State, Burma.

Freedom Runners

April 2016 •English

Rotem Genossar, a teacher at the Bialik-Rogozin campus in south Tel Aviv, founds a running group for his students, young African refugees whose families fled their homeland and now live in Israel without any legal status. At first running is just a social activity for the students, but it quickly becomes a means to fight for their civil rights, part of a struggle to secure them a place of their own, out of the margins of Israeli society.

Bitter Sweet Ballad

July 2023 •Chinese

This is a story about youth with music. It all happens at the Dandelion School, Beijing’s first middle school specifically established for the children of migrant workers. Every year when new pupils arrive, Ms. Yuan Xiaoyan, who has worked in the school choir for eight years, would choose a group of music-loving first-years with solid musical foundations to join the choir. A new group of children join the choir while those who have advanced to the second year have to discuss with their families their future choices. For choir members, their music career in middle school will eventually stop due to the pressure of high school entrance examinations and the inevitable parting. But along this journey accompanied by music, they have been savoring the joys and sorrows of their youth, burying them deep in their hearts, and transforming them into growth-promoting nutrients.