Q&A with Brett Story

Q. How much time did you spend with the Amazon Labor Union before you decided to make the film?

A. Our producers Samantha Curley and Mars Verrone got to know Chris Smalls and some of the other members of his group, The Congress of Essential Workers, for many months before I even came onto the film. When I joined and started spending time with them also, they surprised us by announcing that they were going to start a unionization campaign — we didn’t know that was coming. So we started filming with them almost immediately, knowing that we had the opportunity to see the Amazon Labor Union come into being from day one.

Q. There is a lack of contemporary films about labor, but there has been a significant increase in unionization efforts over the last few years. What inspired you to make this documentary now and do you think we’ll see more films about unions in the near future?

A. I think when people think of labor films, the films that most immediately come to mind are films that are set in a bygone era of the economy. They are films about coal workers and autoworkers. Today’s globalized, supply chain economy hasn’t generated many labor films — in no small part because the rise of low-wage gig jobs has tracked alongside the weakening of the labor movement over the past fifty years.

The state of organized labor has been depressing to witness, and so we haven’t seen as many essential films set among today’s workers. Over the past few years, we’ve just begun to see an exciting resurgence of labor organizing — more unionization attempts, more strikes, new organizing tactics, and just a general sense of revived excitement and attention being paid to labor organizing. It was clear when we started this film that this was an opportunity to make a film set firmly in today’s restructured global economy, featuring a new generation of labor organizers.

Q. Your film does a great job of reminding viewers that the story of the ALU is still unfolding. As a filmmaker, how did the knowledge that your film would only encompass one chapter in the ALU’s ongoing struggle inform your approach to filming?

A. As a filmmaker, one has to have the humility to know that a film can only ever be a partial look. History is always still happening. We continued to film long after the ALU won their historic victory, but once we were in the edit room it was clear that we were either going to have to make multiple films (a series, maybe) to encompass everything that we’d filmed and followed, or we’d have to allow the film to end — as all films must — on this one chapter of the ALU’s struggle, while also hopefully pointing to some of the different unfolding directions the story was still taking.

Q. What’s a happy creative accident you’ve had on set?

A. I drove my car (with the crew in it) into a ditch in Appalachia when filming my documentary The Prison in Twelve Landscapes. The woman that came to our rescue and stayed with us while we waited for a tow truck sang the most beautiful Appalachian folk songs while holding her umbrella over our sound recordist — footage of her singing with us under the rains forms the opening of the film’s section on Eastern Kentucky.

Q. What are some of your favorite films about labor?

A. There are classic labor films that were part of the canon of films that inspired me to become a filmmaker: Harlan County USA and American Dream, Matewan, Union Maids, and Roger and Me. Less well known labor films that I think of as must-seeks include Workingman’s Death, The Nightcleaners, Somebody Got the News, West of the Tracks, Leviathan, The Forgotten Space, and Factory to the Workers.

Q. What is your “guilty pleasure” movie?

A. There are very very few movies that I watch over and over but I guess I will just reveal my exact age and gender by admitting that Dirty Dancing will always be dear to my heart.

Q. If you were not a filmmaker, what would you be?

A. A painter or a writer — so even less lucrative fields!

Q. What image would you like to end this interview with?