Maquilapolis: An Interview with Vicky Funari and Sergio de la Torre

In January 2007 the author interviewed Vicky Funari and Sergio de la Torre about the making of their new documentary Maquilapolis. Produced and developed in partnership with the Chilpancingo Collective, Maquilapolis is filmed in the first “maquilized” city in the Americas (Tijuana, Baja California) and chronicles the lives of maquiladora workers who experience firsthand the debilitating effects of development driven by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) along the Mexico-US border. The making of the film coincided with the global economic crisis of 2001, when factories along the Mexico-US border began relocating to China, leaving behind thousands of unemployed workers and a chaotic urban milieu devastated by faulty infrastructure and toxic industrial waste. The story is told from the perspective of resilient workers-activists (promotoras), dauntless women like Carmen Durán and Lourdes Luján who challenge the power of corporate globalization as they struggle to ameliorate its affects and rebuild their lives and their communities. In this interview, Funari and de la Torre discuss their close collaboration with maquiladora workers/community activists, some of the challenges they faced in making the documentary, and the subsequent outreach campaign for raising awareness about social justice and human rights issues on the Mexico-US border.