Projection Queer loox : ​“salt of the earth” + afterparty

queer Loox celebrates International Women’s Day on March 8 with a feminist film movie and an after party with DJ Sappho playing the tunes. FILM : Salt of the Earth (US, 1954, Dir. Herbert J. Biberman, 92’, English original, English subtitles) Based on the real strike against the Empire Zinc Company in New Mexico and blacklisted in the anti-communist 1950s, Salt of the Earth features the fight of Mexican worker Ramon and other miners for equal pay with Anglo workers. After their picket line is evicted, Ramon’s wife Esperanza and other women force the men to move to the side-lines of the strike and to the households where they have to take the responsibility of the housework and children. The film not only shows the often contradictory process of politicization and solidarity of migrant miners and their wives as they continue to demand better working and living conditions, but also makes visible how the state, law, and police work together to ensure capitalist interests. Long before the second wave of feminism and thus way ahead of its time, Salt of the Earth underscores that the personal is inherently political. At the same time, the film shows how political fights are interconnected : feminist fights for emancipation in their personal relationships with class struggle and anti-racist fights of migrants for their equality as citizens. It is this intersectional complexity that makes the film one of the most intelligent political films and perfect for a screening on International Women’s Day. After the film screening we continue the feminist celebration at Rotondes’ Buvette with DJ Sappho.