Hranice Evropy (premiere) + Q&A

Directed by: Apolena Rychlíková (ČR/SR/FR), 2024, 98 min., languages: cz, sk, en, pl, de, fr

Since the fall of the Wall, a new iron curtain – that of wages – has stretched across Europe. Every year, hundreds of thousands of workers from Eastern Europe, lured by wages three times higher than in their home countries, cross the continent in search of demanding, low-skilled jobs. Leaving Prague, Czech journalist Saša Uhlová experiences the reality of these precarious jobs in the shoes of economic migrants essential to Western Europe’s prosperity. In Germany, on a vast fruit and vegetable farm alongside Polish immigrants, in an Irish hotel in the company of Slovakian colleagues, then as a care assistant in Marseille, she experiences physical pain, stress, fatigue and hellish work rates.

Everywhere she experiences first-hand the fate of those whose work we need on a daily basis. But what is the real price that Europe is paying for poorly designed labor migration? What are the fates and motivations of those who carry it out? And why do we mostly turn a blind eye to their miserable working and wage conditions?

A delegation from the film will attend the premiere and after the screening there will be a Q&A in Czech and Slovak.

Classification guidelines: 12+

Supported using public funding by Bratislava City Foundation and Bratislava Old Town. The digitalization of Kino inak was financially supported by the Audiovisual Fund.