Yael Bridge is a documentarian through and through. Her first few shorts were all documentaries. Her feature-length debut,The Big Scary ‘S’ Word, tackled a very heated subject in socialism. Now, the filmmaker has taken her camera to the working class, in a literal sense. Bridge gained on-the-ground access to UPS teamsters as they were mobilizing a potential strike. The ensuing documentary, Who Moves America, is a searing look at workers’ rights, corporate greed, and the volatile mix of the two.
Since becoming a filmmaker, you have always been drawn to real human stories. What about documentaries appeals to you?
I’m really interested in subjectivity. We’re all humans walking around trapped in our own bodies, and so it’s hard to really understand someone else’s experience. I love documentaries because it forces you to see something from a different angle or perspective. It lets you go into spaces and places that maybe you’re not allowed to go in, for whatever reason, and that can’t help but change you.
In that same vein, what do you think is the appeal of documentaries to movie-goers?
We’re in the midst of a crisis of the real, to quote Andy Grunberg. With the development of new technologies in A.I. and C.G.I., it’s becoming more difficult to know what’s real. But I think there is a backlash to that; people are hungry for authenticity.
“…a searing look at workers’ rights, corporate greed, and the volatile mix of the two.”
How did you become aware of the potential UPS strike, as you are on the ground while negotiations were happening?
The team on this film — myself, Jeremy Flood, Mars Veronne & Yoni Golijov — is very experienced in documenting labor stories. In 2018, most UPS teamsters voted against the contract that the union signed. In 2022, Teamsters elected new leadership, including general president Sean O’Brien. O’Brien and his administration immediately signaled a change in the union. They reduced their own salaries. They increased the financial support that the union gives members out on strike. Basically, they signaled that they were going to strike if they needed to, and the temperature on all their contracts heated up, most of all the biggest contract in North America: Teamsters and UPS.
How did you gain such unprecedented access to the Teamsters’ meetings in Who Moves America?
It’s all about gaining trust: showing your past work, talking about your hopes for the film, and seeing if your goals align with the people you’re filming with.
What were the biggest challenges you faced in producing the documentary?
Perhaps it is a cliché to say, but fundraising. We are really fortunate to have the early support of the Berkeley Film Foundation and Perspective. And of course, ITVS — our dream was always to land on public media — it’s such a critical public story, so having it be available for free, without a streaming subscription, means everything.
