Bellwether: Union w/ Director Stephen Maing

Director Stephen Maing joins us in person for a post-film conversation.

This screening is free to Amherst Cinema Members.

Through intimate cinema vérité, UNION chronicles the extraordinary efforts of an unlikely group of warehouse workers as they launch a grassroots union campaign at an Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island, New York.

Led by the charismatic but underestimated Chris Smalls, the diverse band of workers start the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) and embark on a journey against one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world.

The odds are stacked against them, as the group finds itself up against a tech industry giant with unlimited resources, without major support from national unions or politicians, and while navigating internal divisions within their own ranks.

Filmmakers Brett Story and Stephen Maing document the struggle from day one, offering a gripping human drama about the fight for power and dignity in today's globalized economic landscape.

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Stephen Maing is an Emmy-award winning filmmaker based in New York. His feature documentary CRIME + PUNISHMENT, which he directed, filmed and edited, won a Special Jury Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, an Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. His previous films, HIGH TECH, LOW LIFE, which he directed, filmed and edited over five years, and THE SURRENDER, have screened internationally and were released on POV and Field of Vision, respectively.

Maing is a 2021 United States Artists Fellow, Sundance Institute Fellow, NBC Original Voices Fellow, John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Reporting Fellow and a recipient of the IDA's prestigious Courage Under Fire Award shared with the whistleblowers of the NYPD12. He is a frequent visiting artist and educator based in Ridgewood, Queens.

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.