BODIES OF WORK AND REST – Kino Caisa: I Don’t Dream of Labour

Short film series on capitalism, labour and the futures we dream of.

I Don’t Dream of Labour explores how capitalism and neoliberalism affect the way we think and conceive of work.

The programme is split into four evenings of short films which all consider different aspects of capitalism’s human toll.

‘Bodies of Work and Rest’ is the first evening of the ‘I Don’t Dream of Labour’-film programme. The programme explores our relationship to work, capitalism and power through screenings of short- to mid-length films.

How does capitalism take hold of our lives and bodies? Can we resist being fundamentally moulded by it?

By thinking about the body as a fundamental site of capitalist exploitation, we can examine the insidious ways in which we are affected by it. We are put at risk, expected to endure harm and forced to shrink our needs to meet those of the machine clogging on. But these films also offer an opening – to tune in to ourselves, pay attention, slow down and resist. The screening is followed by a panel discussion.

URANIUM HEX / Sandra Lahire, UK 1987. 11 mins.
The film deals with uranium mining in Canada focusing particularly on the woman’s work and the destruction of the environment. The film uses a kaleidoscopic array of experimental techniques such as superimposition, re-filming, changes of speed, pace and an elaborate layering of sounds where ‘atmos’ recording mixes with voices, music.

HEROINE OF POST-SOCIALIST LABOUR / Mare Tralla, Estonia 2004. 4 mins.
Mare Tralla revisits the classic socialist myth of women as work heroines, drawing on documentary archives of the Soviet era. After the fall of Communism, the classical images of milkmaids, factory workers, and tractor drivers gave way to capitalist images of feminine beauty and supermodel-like bodies. Tralla compares both models and the efforts they involve.

WOMAN AT REST / Paola Jalili, Finland 2024. 13 mins.
When your workplace is not a physical site but your own body, taking a break from work is not always an option. For the artist, the freelancer, the precarious worker, the limits between life and work dissolve like foam in water. Can they ever be on holiday?

IN PRAISE OF SLOWNESS / Hicham Gardaf, Morocco 2024. 17 mins.
In the face of the global economic and technological forces reshaping the city of Tangier, the profession of the bleach vendors seems to be on the verge of disappearance, yet this filmic portrait conveys acoustic and visual images of endurance. In Praise of Slowness speaks to the accelerated urbanisation and industrialisation of Tangier, but also attests to how locally situated choreographies of slowness articulate modes of resistance to the speed of capitalism.

RESISTANCE MEDITATION / Sarah Wylie, Canada 2024. 4,5 mins.
Bending space and temporality, Sara Wylie envisions a world where time is reimagined outside of capitalism’s agenda of productivity and non-disabled norms. A pulsing and evocative meditation on agency found through stillness and crip time.

All works contain English subtitles. The panel discussion will take place in English. It is facilitated by Adalmiina Erkkola and includes the filmmaker Paola Jalili.

Paola Jalili (she / her / ella) is an artist-publisher and cultural worker currently based in Helsinki. She founded Ei Mainoksia, Kiitos!, an independent art publishing initiative that aims to experiment with unconventional and sustainable book formats, and to highlight the time and labor behind the act of publishing. She is a member of Feminist Culture House, a curatorial and editorial platform that works with and for underrepresented artists. In her visual arts practice, Paola reflects on the intersections between labor, gender, and the contemporary workplace through the project Office Aesthetics.

The programme is curated by Adalmiina Erkkola, a cultural producer interested in the political potential of film. They als