Limits of Europe, directed by Apolena Rychlíková and selected for European Film Promotion’s Changing Face of Europe programme at Hot Docs 2024, pulls no punches in its depiction of the life of the economic migrant. In this case the focus is on migrant work in Germany, Ireland and France as undertaken by Czech undercover journalist Sasha Uhlová who leaves behind her partner, four kids and her seriously ill father, the Czech dissident Petr Uhl.
The film is a follow-up to Rychlíková’s The Limits of Work (2017) which lifted the lid on labour conditions in the Czech Republic, sparking considerable public in the process.
Limits of Europe is shot over two years, during which Sasha and director Rychlíková targeted three countries (Germany, Ireland and France) and three industries (agriculture, hotel/catering and care for the elderly) as the former goes undercover with a hidden camera, recording not only economic inequities but also the friendships she makes en route, even with some of the elderly and infirm folk she looks after in Marseilles.
In Germany, her hands continually ache from picking, cutting and sorting hundreds of kilos of vegetables. When there is a special supermarket deal on offer they must work longer and longer shifts at the rate of €6.20 per hour, seven days per week. At one point, the workers (mainly female) arrange to down tools in the warehouse, but they must stay out in the field longer to satisfy vegetable demand, and by the time they return to the building they are too exhausted to make good on their decision to go on strike.
When working in a hotel in Ireland together with other CEE migrants, Sasha earns more money (€10.50 per hour) but the work is back-breaking and she observes how “the migrant workers’ vulnerability is cynically exploited.” She also reveals how bathroom towels are used for multi-cleaning purposes (to save on costs) before being washed and placed back in the guest bathrooms.
In Marseilles, she works as a home care worker, travelling from client to client for appointments of no longer than 2 hours duration. But she is not paid for travel time between sessions. What’s more, she is expected to, on occasion, stay longer with her elderly clients (at no extra pay) and even purchase some of their foodstuffs out of her own wages. But she forms a close bond with some of them, and is genuinely moved when she must leave, not least because the agency can no longer guarantee a replacement.
Rychlíková was not surprised by the footage she saw which detailed the struggles of the CEE migrant workers. “I had had few illusions about that even before we started filming…but I am glad that I had the opportunity to see labour migration in all its ambiguity.”
When in Ireland, Sasha heard of her father’s death, and we see her back in the Czech Republic at the funeral where moving tributes are given by Petr’s former comrades and co-signatories of the famous Charter 77 critique of the then-Czech government.
“Sasha’s story… offers a multitude of perspectives,” director Rychlíková writes in her notes. “There is the perspective of her journalism work and professional devotion which requires personal sacrifice. Sasha had to leave behind not only her four children and friends back home, but also her seriously ill father. She decided that she couldn’t have a choice in that matter, just like all her fellow migrant workers don’t.”
“Then there is the perspective of social inequalities in today’s Europe,” she adds. “Experience gained by Sasha uncovers the painful discrepancy between the East and West. Between rich and poor countries. It shows that migrant workers find themselves in one of the most vulnerable positions. Ironically, the West relies on their labour while simultaneously taking it for granted and when problems arise, like several years ago in the UK, migrant workers become the target of hateful political campaigns. As if they aren’t people with their own dreams, needs and dignity at all.”
After two years of migrant work, Sasha committed to an editorial analysis of the experience across articles and journals, and in a book on the subject. Meanwhile director Rychlíková hit the edit suite for a year to shape her documentary. Sasha first saw the film at the world premiere at FIFDH in Geneva in March 2024.
“I didn’t want to tell the story only about the working conditions or the miserable lives of migrant people, but also to make a real story about somebody who is curious and who is doing her job as well as possible,” Rychlíková tells BDE of Sasha, adding that the vulnerability of the migrant and the jobs they do are inextricably linked to the higher standards of life and privileges that we in the West have come to demand.
“I think that we really need to discuss the whole system of big inequality between the West and Eastern European countries. It is something really dangerous for democracy in Europe when you still have the countries which [earn] one third of the minimum wage of the west,” Rychlíková underlines. “The West really needs to discuss the working condition of migrant people, because they [the West] are not able to follow their own morals and rules.”
The film, which has screened on Arte and is also selected for the upcoming Krakow Film Festival, is only recently completed, so Rychlíková hasn’t yet determined the shape of a future Impact campaign. “But the one thing I really would like to do is to screen the film in the European Parliament,” she says. “I really would like to have some discussion with people working there… and discuss what we as a European Union can do with the position or vulnerability of the migrant people. That would be very important for me, and also for Sasha.”
