ZaLab presents:
White Boss Black Boss (doc, 6’, Italy, 2012)
by Rossella Anitori and Antonio Laforgia,
Photography: Rossella Anitori, Antonio Laforgia, Raffaele Petralla
Editing: Rossella Anitori, Antonio Laforgia, Chiara Russo
They get up when it’s still dark and crammed in vans they follow a labyrinth of dirt tracks to the fields where they work head down for more than ten hours. They are the farm labourers of the great plain of Italian tomatoes. Thousands of African migrants condemned by the lack of other options to supply the great tank of off the books jobs supporting food farming industry profits. They know nothing about wage packets, contracts, or rights. They are recruted by a fellow countryman, the “blackboss” (“caponero”), behind whom the “whiteboss” (“capobianco”) hides. Two sides of the same coin, pertaining to a system recognized in 2011 as a crime, but still holding as general rule in Italian countrysides.