Program 18: Shorts Replay - Home From Work, Heirloom, NOVA, The Arrivals

Home From Work - In tourist towns across the United States, where housing is scarce, a growing number of workers have few options but to live in employer-provided housing. Home From Work follows two workers caught in this precarious limbo where losing a job could mean losing their home, and an employer grappling with his responsibility to his employees. As the film uncovers the legal gray areas of employee housing, it draws parallels to the company towns of the past, where employers maintained unchecked control over workers' lives. Home From Work exposes the emotional and economic toll of a system without safety nets while raising urgent questions about the future of labor rights in the face of increasing economic inequality. (2024, 11m, Directors: Alex Fleming-McNeil and Michael Beuttler)

Heirloom is a queer climate film set in an absurd and not-so-unrealistic 2044. Food is no longer recognizable - insects are the dominant protein, and synthetic vegetables no longer taste or feel like anything - which is why one family makes it their objective to find an Old Tomato, finding out along the way how the food system became the way it is, and what could be done to disrupt it. (2024, 11m, Director: Alec Simmons)
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NOVA - Jessica, a third-generation Japanese Brazilian, leaves for Tokyo to pursue her dreams, only to lose her job due to the rise of A.I. One day, her estranged father, Carlos, whom she hasn’t seen in over ten years, suddenly reappears. He, too, has lost his job and has come to see his daughter one last time. Though they clash, the two embark on a journey to rediscover work and meaning in life. (2025, 37m, Japan, Director: Yuma Terada)
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The Arrivals is a poignant documentary that captures the journey of asylum seekers sent to New York City from the Texas border, starting in August 2022. The film highlights the efforts of three small, underfunded volunteer organizations that provided essential support, including food, clothing, kindness and dignity to traumatized individuals and families seeking safety and security in the United States.

The film focuses on 3 volunteer organizations and their leaders Adama Bah, Ilze Thielmann and Power Malu. The story follows their heroic efforts along with a team of amazing volunteers greeting migrants arriving at the Port Authority bus terminal, progressing eventually to 3 locations in NY where their work continues providing clothing, food, legal services and a sense of security to people seeking a better life. (2025, 36m, Director: Andrea DeGeorge Garbarini)