Fort York
RESCHEDULED! - Wednesday, june 26, 2024

Sorry to bother you

With the short film Fresh Meat

A surreal science-fiction satire about racism, class politics, labour organizing, and revolution by filmmaker, musician, provocateur, and political activist Boots Riley – in many ways, it’s a miracle Sorry to Bother You ever got made in Hollywood. Fortunately for film-lovers and social justice advocates alike, it did. The film tells the story of Cassius "Cash" Green (LaKeith Stanfield), a young Black man in Oakland working a soul-destroying telemarketing job who unwittingly looks behind the curtain and experiences a life-changing political awakening. It’s part how-to guide to unionizing your workplace, part biting social commentary on anti-Black racism and class oppression under capitalism, and part dystopian deconstruction of the bright (white) future promised by the tech industry. It’s also extremely funny. Riley’s singular vision of a near-future world not so different from our own is a potent inoculation against anti-union propaganda for an era in which workers of all stripes are engaging in collective action in greater numbers than we’ve seen for generations.

Toronto storyteller, filmmaker and activist Lu Asfaha gives new meaning to the term “human resources” in her darkly comic short Fresh Meat. When an idealistic young music writer lands her dream job at a major media conglomerate, the office’s slick surface takes on a sinister character as she begins to question where her fellow writers get their ideas. Like Riley, Asfaha manages to combine suspense, humour, and social commentary into a rare take on the office satire genre.