Waiting for the Carnival

Director Marcelo Gomes returns to Tortima, the jeans capital of Brazil. The large factories have disappeared, but the workers have not. The inhabitants of the small town became their own boss. Day in day out, seven days a week, jeans is being processed. The clattering of the sewing machines never stops, except when it is Carnival. Then, everyone gets their well-earned rest. Gomes used to see everyone wasting their time in a rocking chair, but now you see everyone finishing up just that last pair of skinny jeans or hot-pants around every corner.

This documentary muses through the new dreams of the inhabitants. They are proud to be ‘their own boss’, but are they though? The exploitation by huge companies and multinationals might have stopped, but the machines have not. In present-day capitalism, the boundary between independence and self-exploitation appears to be paper-thin. Every minute wasted not working, equals less money in the bank.