About this Event
https://vimeo.com/1081505487
70% INFORMALS - What if the world we think we know is only half the story?
70% Informals is an eye-opening journey into the invisible epidemic shaping our planet — informality. Encounters across Greece, Tunisia, Peru, Mexico, the United States, and Germany expose a hidden world where nearly three out of every five people live and work outside the formal economy — without rights, recognition, or security.
From street vendors and undocumented migrants to renowned thinkers and policymakers, the stories reveal how informality traps billions in cycles of uncertainty and exclusion — not only in the Global South, but also in the world’s wealthiest nations. Immersing audiences in the emotional and economic toll of this silent crisis, the film makes vivid what it truly means to live on society’s margins.
Yet, amid the despair, hope emerges. With her innovative framework, acclaimed economist Elena Panaritis demonstrates that transformation is not only possible — it’s within reach. She reveals how entire nations can lift their citizens from the shadows of informality into the dignity and stability of the middle class.
Visually striking and deeply human, 70% Informals challenges our understanding of progress, inequality, and belonging — and dares us to imagine a world where no one is left invisible.
(47m, 2026, Germany, Greece, Mexico, Peru, Tunisia, U.S., Director: Felipe Ibarguen)
https://informals.org
ARCHITECTURE WORKERS: ORGANIZING FOR CHANGE - In an industry notorious for long hours, unpaid overtime, and precarious employment, architectural workers are fighting back. This documentary follows members of The Architecture Lobby, a grassroots labor organization, as we organize for better working conditions within a profession shaped by systemic inequity and a broken market.
Through seven chapters, the film reveals how architects, critics, educators, and our fellow workers across related trades are using unions, cooperatives, and grassroots organizing to transform their field. From the historical roots of architectural labor movements to contemporary strategies, the story exposes both the personal cost of architectural work and, more emphatically, the collective power emerging to transform it.
As the people who shape our built environment organize for dignity at work, we're also reimagining how design can serve equity over the profit motive, connecting our struggles to broader social and global justice movements.
Each chapter culminates in a call to action, designed to spark dialogue and inspire change in architecture workplaces everywhere. Set primarily in the U.S. context, the film offers strategies and insights relevant for architectural workers around the world.
Architecture is a profession swallowed by a form of capitalism reaching its own breaking point, running on value unfairly extracted through precarious and unpaid work, by bosses who pose as individual geniuses but don't have the courage to admit they’re being squeezed by the very same capital they claim to command. (50m, 2026, Director: Valérie Lechêne)
https://architecture-lobby.org/working-groups/a-documentary-film
Shorts to precede:
PUBLIC SERVANTS: THE PEOPLE WHO KEPT DIPLOMACY WORKING - Since July 2025, the U.S. government has fired more than 5,000 career experts at the State Department and USAID - a small but critical fraction of the 300,000-plus public servants who have lost their jobs since January 2025.
Public Servants: The People Who Kept Diplomacy Working is a documentary short that tells the stories of these civil servants. It focuses on the July 2025 cuts, one of the most visible and consequential workforce actions in the modern history of American foreign affairs. Sitting down with seven public servants, the film explores their experiences and reckons with what was lost.
Ultimately, it is a call to action - spearheaded by fired federal workers and financially supported by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). (3m, 2026, Directors: Jonny Meyer and Steve Jeter)
https://www.myafge1534.org/advocacy
UNITED WORKERS - Who are the people that the capitalist machinery needs to keep it running and making profits? Who are the people who are needed for a functioning civil society? United Workers is an audiovisual art project dedicated to working people.
Unlike media for capitalist advertising purposes, here workers are put in the spotlight and made visible and their work audible. Images and sounds of work and workers become part of an audiovisual concert that offers insights into different worlds of work and production. (5m, 2026, Austria, Germany, Mexico, Namibia, Director: Susanne Rogenhofer)
Event venue & nearby stays
Cinema Village, 22 East 12th St, New York, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.