No Sweat

Amie Williams
U.S., 2006
English/Spanish
54 minutes • Color
Production: Bal-Maiden Films
Screenplay: Amie Williams
Cinematography: Amie Williams
Music: Quetzal Quetzal

SHOWTIMES:
Mon Apr 30 9:30pm Key Cinemas

Thur May 3 10:00pm Indy Men’s Magazine Screening Room (Landmark)

Sweat X and American Apparel are two Los Angeles-based T-shirt manufacturers committed to creating “sweat-free” clothing (i.e. their workers earn livable wages and get benefits, work in safe environments, etc.). While Sweat X is backed by $2.5 million from ice cream-maker (Ben and Jerry’s) turned social activist Ben Cohen, American Apparel was built from the ground up by controversial Canadian “schmata” hustler, Dov Charney.

No Sweat is a fast-paced, behind-the scenes documentary that follows these two companies for one year, comparing their divergent business practices, interviewing workers, following a union drive, and zeroing in on the hopes and dreams of the garment workers themselves.

While Dov gets slapped with sexual harassment allegations and openly resists unionization, Sweat X struggles to survive in the tight economic conditions that have sent so much of their competition overseas.

SCREENS WITH:

TEXAS GOLD
Carolyn Scott, US, 22 minutes

Diane Wilson, a fourth generation fisherman and mother of five, has been fighting the petro-chemical industry and its poisoning ways since 1989.