The Pickers: presentazione, proiezione e dibattito – con Camilla Serlupi Crescenzi

“The Pickers”, directed by Elke Sasse and produced by Kristian Kähler (Germany, 2024), is a 80-minute documentary film that reveals the exploitation of migrant agricultural workers in Europe. It follows the experiences of six of these migrant farm workers in four European countries where fruit and vegetables are produced: oranges in Italy, blueberries in Portugal, strawberries in Spain, and olives in Greece.

Indeed, there are over two million migrant agricultural workers in Europe. They are an essential part of our food system. But this work often leads them into modern slavery: unacceptable working and living conditions, sub-minimum wages, inadequate access to healthcare, and violations of their fundamental freedoms and human rights. What we see in the film adds a bitter taste to our fruit and vegetables, produced in a system replete with exploitation on many levels. We all want fresh produce at affordable prices, but the pickers are paying the true cost of our cheap food for us.

“The Pickers” highlights the need for urgent action to safeguard the human rights of migrant agricultural workers who pick the fruit and vegetables we enjoy each day and are a crucial part of our food system. This event is a chance for students to learn more about the unacceptable conditions migrant agricultural workers are subjected to and what we can do to make a difference.

“The Pickers” inspired THE PICKERS Campaign, campaign action across Europe that aims to eradicate it and is touring distributing more than 3000 fairly produced oranges along the way.
The oranges will come from SOS Rosarno, featured in the film, where workers are treated fairly. Demanding a “FAIR PICK”, the campaign calls for 10 essential guarantees for migrant workers’ rights and raises the question why these are not universally implemented and enforced.
The campaign is run by Scottish-based Film & Campaign Ltd and supported by Seedling Foundation and The StoryBoard Collective. It has partnered with organisations like Oxfam Germany, FIAN International, Swiss Fair Trade, WeWorld and appellando.

***Camilla Serlupi is Program Officer Social & Climate Justice – Awareness & Domestic Programs, WeWorld Onlus.
She has been working for over 6 years at WeWorld, one of the 10 largest NGOs in Italy. Specialized in management and social economics, she is a passionate activist for human rights, international cooperation, and social impact. Today, she is program officer for WeWorld in the area of social and environmental justice for programs in Italy and Europe. She coordinates and supervises awareness-raising, capacity-building, and advocacy projects on the environment, rights, and sustainability, and is the production manager for WeWorld Festivals. Through her coordination of the European projects OurFoodOurFuture (2020-2023) and RebootingTheFoodSystem (2024-2027), she has been involved for years in raising awareness and promoting youth activism for fair, just, and sustainable agri-food supply chains, from the local to the international level.