Barbara Kopple brings labour documentary Union Town to Toronto
Two-time Oscar winner Barbara Kopple is back on the picket line with Union Town, a documentary about New York workers fighting for contracts, pay and safety.
The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and then made its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 11, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Union Town is about the growing United States labour movement. It follows three separate battles in New York City, all set among the people who move parcels and food around the city.
One thread follows Amazon warehouse employees working toward winning a first contract. Another follows UPS delivery drivers and warehouse workers, who made their first real strike threat in years in 2023 under the Sean O'Brien-led Teamsters union.
The third thread follows deliveristas, delivery riders working for apps such as DoorDash and Uber Eats. The film centres on organiser Ligia Guallpa, co-founder of the Worker's Justice Project, and includes app delivery worker Victor Hidalgo, who was struck by a fire truck while riding his bike on Oct. 30, 2024. Teamsters Local 804 president Vinnie Perrone also appears.
TIFF describes the subjects as the workers who transport 2.4 million packages and 300,000 meals every day in New York City, according to TIFF. Shot in cinéma vérité style, meaning the camera observes real life as it happens without narration, it is a close portrait of that daily grind.
Kopple is known for labour documentaries. She previously directed Harlan County, U.S.A. and American Dream, and Venice listed her as a two-time Oscar winner. Union Town screened as an out-of-competition documentary at the 2026 Venice Film Festival.
In Toronto it plays in TIFF Docs, the festival's documentary strand. Ahead of Venice, Autlook Films boarded the USA production as its sales company, the firm that sells distribution rights to buyers around the world, as reported by Variety.
What makes this stand out is the continuity. Kopple built her career filming American labour fights in the 1970s and 1990s. Fifty years on, Union Town puts her back with a new generation of workers in the same fight over contracts and conditions.
