Morristown:
in the air and sun

“If they shut down the ports we’d be naked and barefooted.”
–Shirley Reinhardt, former GE worker

Morristown: in the air and sun is a working class response to globalization. It engages the audience in the issues of immigration, factory flight, and the organized demand for economic justice.

Filmed over an 8-year period in the mountains of east Tennessee, interior Mexico, and Ciudad Juarez, Morristown: in the air and sun is rooted in the authentic expression of workers who speak about their lives, work, disappointments, and hope. These conversations are combined with scenes in factories, fields, union halls, Mexican stores, city parks, and employment agencies. The documentary travels to the U.S.-Mexican border (El Paso – Juarez) to create deeper understanding of factory flight out of Morristown, and to interior Mexico to look at the forces that cause immigration. Morristown ends with a stunning union victory at a large poultry processing plant in Morristown, Tennessee.

Principal Credits

a film by Anne Lewis principal humanities advisor, Fran Ansley director of photography, Peter Pearce music, Dirk Powell location associates - Juarez Luis Fernando Arana and Pato Esquivel of IMDEC Rene Renteria Laura Varela Guanajuato Laura Montes de Oca Luis Ramirez

Tennessee Mimi Pickering Justine Richardson Nick Szuberla funded in part by the Southern Humanities Media Fund Rockefeller Film/Video/Multimedia Fellowship U.S.-Mexico Fund for Culture City of Austin Cultural Division and gifts from Jim Sessions and Fran Ansley Emily Jones and Mike Gross

Two earlier pieces inform and extend the current feature documentary. From the Mountains to the Maquiladoras covers the 1991 trip of east Tennessee factory workers to the maquiladoras. The Morristown Video Letters includes source material of interviews with workers who appear in the new film. For copies contact- the Highlander Research and Education Center