The 5th Annual Workers Unite Film Festival presents
EVERY FOLD MATTERS
A multi-media performance with film on the lives of laundromat workers
Created by Lizzie Olesker and Lynne Sachs
The 5th Annual Workers Unite Film Festival is proud to present EVERY FOLD MATTERS in keeping with its mission to educate, illuminate and motivate audiences with a wide ranging view of workers, their lives and their struggle for dignity and fair wages. Presented in various spaces in New York City, this expanded version of EVERY FOLD MATTERS is an ode to the communal exchange and cultural crossroads of the neighborhood laundry, a place that is fast disappearing from many gentrifying urban areas. This genre-bending live performance-film event will unfold on May 2-4 (location TBA) and May 13, 14. 15 at Union Docs in Williamsburg, with acclaimed downtown actors Ching Valdes-Aran, Jasmine Holloway, Veraalba Santa, and Tony Torn, design by Chris Maltby, film editing by Amanda Katz, and original music derived from the sounds of a real, working Laundromat by Stephen Vitiiello.
“The legacy of domestic work, the issues surrounding power, and the exchange of money for services are all potent themes which rise to the surface and bubble over in dramatic, thrilling escalations of the everyday.” (Brooklyn Rail)
“Spotlights the often-invisible workers who fold the clothes, maintain the machines and know your secrets.” (In These Times)
“The intersection of film and performance, reality and imagination, employee and customer, historical fact and personal anecdote…You made us rethink the laundromat as a site of urban convergence, where strangers (of different races, religions, languages and classes) make ritualistic visits to a public space that’s also a functional extension of their own homes.” Alan Berliner, filmmaker
EVERY FOLD MATTERS has received support from New York State Council on the Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (through Dirty Laundry/Loads of Prose), Women and Media Coalition, and Fandor FIX Filmmakers.
www.everyfoldmatters.com
www.worksunitefilmfestival.org
Link to performance trailer available upon request.