Black Boss White Boss

They get up when it’s still dark and, crammed in vans, they follow a labyrinth of dirt tracks to the fields where they work head down for more than ten hours. They are the farm labourers of the great plain of Italian tomatoes.

Thousands of African migrants condemned by the lack of other options to supply the great tank off the books jobs supporting food farming industry profits. They know nothing about wage packets, contracts, or rights. They are recruited by a fellow countryman, the “blackboss” (“caponero”), behind whom the “whiteboss” (“capobianco”) hides.

Two sides of the same coin, pertaining to a system recognized in 2011 as a crime, but still holding as general rule in Italian countrysides.

 

It is possible to organize a screening of “Black Boss White Boss” for free.

Credits

Italy, 2012 – ‘6

Authors: Rossella Anitori, Antonio Laforgia

DoP: Rossella Anitori, Antonio Laforgia, Raffaele Petralla

Editing: Rossella Anitori, Antonio Laforgia, Chiara Russo

Produced with the support of Open Society Foundation.

green blood

 In Italy, since the ’90s, and particularly in some areas of the South marked by a strong presence of mafia organizations,  thousands of immigrants from Africa and East Europe have been exploited in agriculture deprived of any type of right and  enduring unbearable life conditions