Book Now

Across Europe’s fields—from sun-drenched groves in Italy to wind-swept vineyards in Greece—The Pickers brings us face to face with the migrant harvesters whose hands bring our fruit and veg to the table.

Without contracts, safety, or fair pay, Seydou, Bahija, Kirti, and others navigate precarious lives. Through their voices, we uncover the human cost of our year-round produce: homes sacrificed, bodies worn, traditions fading. From dawn pickups to moonlit harvests, the film moves with a rhythm, each row of produce carrying stories often left unseen.

But alongside this hardship, activists like Pape in southern Italy breathe hope into fields, pioneering ethical farms and the FAIR PICK campaign: a call for justice, dignity, and sustainable bounty.

With perceptive observation, The Pickers unearths the human cost beneath every supermarket aisle and invites us to imagine a food system where care, not cost, defines our harvest.

🎤 Followed by live Q&A with Meet The Pickers campaign producer Ben Kempas.

💬 This film is subtitled. Post-film Q&A will be live captioned (CART). Learn more about access at the festival →

Director: Elke Sasse | Country: Germany | Year: 2024 | Running Time: 80 min | Language: English, and Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Bambara, and Urdu with English subtitles | Rating: 12A |  Content guidance: contains reference to sexual harassment

About the filmmaker:

Elke Sasse is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work reveals global connections through intimate, character-driven stories. From garlic farmers in China to dancehall pensioners in Berlin to refugees documenting their journeys via mobile phones, her films spotlight overlooked voices. Her credits include #MyEscape (Prix Europa 2016), Tomatoes and Greed, Oil Promises, and The War on My Phone. Whether on a Ukrainian village bench (Babske Radio) or tracing global Berlins (Worldwide Berlins), Sasse finds the extraordinary in the everyday and brings urgent issues to vivid life.

About the speakers:

With Short Film:

Headland

A nature reserve on the English Channel is a place of wonder and solace, shaped and haunted by violence. Headland is an intimate look at life on a pebble beach reclaimed from the ocean, interweaving the tradition of sea rescues with recent Channel crossings, as witnessed by the last of the Dungeness fishermen.

🎤 Followed by live Q&A with director Mariana Duarte.

💬 Post-film Q&A will be live captioned (CART). Learn more about access at the festival →

Director: Mariana Duarte | Country: UK | Year: 2024 | Running Time: 15 min | Language: English | Rating: 12A

About the filmmaker:

Mariana Duarte is a Brazilian filmmaker based in Scotland whose work spans creative non-fiction and international co-productions. A Berlinale Talents alumna, her films have screened at festivals including Aspen Shortfest, Edinburgh, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Tiradentes. Her latest short, Headland (2024), commissioned by the Scottish Documentary Institute's Bridging the Gap programme, won Best Mini-Doc at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. She previously directed Newcomers (2013) and worked as an editor at TV Globo. Currently completing a PhD in Film Practice at Edinburgh College of Art, her research explores borders, migration, and ecology in contemporary documentary cinema. Her recent publication, A Camera in the Water: Reframing the Migrant Image in Documentary Film, appeared in Screen journal.

Book Now