Closing out the Arts & Cultural Film Festival, this event brings together film and conversation to reflect on the conditions and possibilities of collective organising.
Featuring: Past UMSU Presidents and chaired by Lushy Chinganya, UMSU President 2026
Venue: George Paton Gallery
Date: Friday 22 May, 3–5pm, followed by refreshments at Ida Bar
Closing out the Arts & Cultural Film Festival, this event brings together film and conversation to reflect on the conditions and possibilities of collective organising. The program is anchored by a screening of UNION (2024), a cinéma vérité documentary that follows a group of warehouse workers in Staten Island as they form the Amazon Labor Union. Led by organiser Chris Smalls, the film traces a grassroots campaign unfolding against one of the most powerful corporations in the world, revealing the personal, political, and collective stakes of organising under conditions of precarity and resistance.
Following the screening, a panel of past UMSU Presidents, chaired by 2026 UMSU President Lushy Chinganya, will reflect on the realities of organising within the university context. Drawing connections between contemporary labour movements and student advocacy, the discussion positions the union as a site of solidarity, care, and collective action, foregrounding the ongoing work of shaping and transforming the conditions we inhabit.