Fresh fruit and vegetables at bargain prices. In Europe, this often goes hand in hand with exploitation and suffering. Most harvest laborers work and live in precarious conditions. The pickers deliver, but they also pay the price for our luxury.
The absurdity of consumer behavior in the western world is something we should’ve woken up to long ago. No matter the season, almost any type of fruit and vegetable can be purchased in the supermarket. But this takes a toll: both on our environment, as well as on the people who toil for our luxuries. Their suffering, however, is suppressed. The conditions under which they live and work do not seem to matter - the only thing that counts is picking speed. "You can't see the reality, it's hidden,” says the chairman of the Andalusian agricultural workers’ union.
Blueberries in Portugal, olives in Greece, strawberries in Spain - around one million migrants are currently working in European fields. The pickers are the itinerant laborers who fill the baskets of our supermarkets, most of them without receiving a contract or minimum wage, some without papers, or with high debts to intermediaries.
The film is a journey to the European fields where fruit and vegetables are grown. In southern Italy, Seydou from Mali picks oranges. He has no contract and is paid by the crate. He lives in a self-built hut in a settlement without water or electricity. The camera dives into the sea of cultivation tents that cover thousands of hectares of farmland and gives a face to people who are invisible in our society.
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