BREAD AND ROSES

The Los Angeles of BREAD AND ROSES is no glittering playground to the stars but a polyglot metropolis where small oligarchies control the power and money, and struggling immigrants try to eke out their existence on the margins. Mexico City native Maya, like so many, illegally crosses the border to join her sister Rosa and carve out a better life in the Latino community. Just when she needs it, a job comes up – working alongside Rosa in the somewhat misnamed Angel Cleaning Services, sweeping out the high-rise offices of businessmen and laywers after hours for a pittance. Enter Sam, a charismatic activist for the city's janitorial union, fighting a building-by-building campaign to organize the housecleaners and imporve their wages. As Sam, with Maya's complicity, leads riskier and riskier protests against the company and its thugs, the Mexican girl finds herself falling for more than his political ideals. Over his four decades of filmmaking Ken Loach has only improved at his craft, seeming almost without effort to craft features like “Riff-Raff” (17th CIFF, 1993) and “Land and Freedom” (20th CIFF, 1996), impeccable tales set among the working classes but concerned with real people and emotions, not just mere sloganeering and issues. (In English and Spanish with English subtitles)