Program 5: Heirloom, NOVA, The Last Newspaperman, Bang Bang, Gold Status

Heirloom is a queer climate film set in an absurd and not-so-unrealistic 2044. Food is no longer recognizable - insects are the dominant protein, and synthetic vegetables no longer taste or feel like anything - which is why one family makes it their objective to find an Old Tomato, finding out along the way how the food system became the way it is, and what could be done to disrupt it. (2024, 11m, Director: Alec Simmons)
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NOVA - Jessica, a third-generation Japanese Brazilian, leaves for Tokyo to pursue her dreams, only to lose her job due to the rise of A.I. One day, her estranged father, Carlos, whom she hasn’t seen in over ten years, suddenly reappears. He, too, has lost his job and has come to see his daughter one last time. Though they clash, the two embark on a journey to rediscover work and meaning in life. (2025, 37m, Japan, Director: Yuma Terada)
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The Last Newspaperman examines the crisis of local journalism, its causes, and the proposals to fix it, through the personalized frame of one local newspaper reporter’s life and career. The short film introduces a veteran of local journalism, Joe Napsha, who has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review for forty-five years as a general assignment reporter. The film follows Napsha at work to show viewers how local news is made and uses archival footage to reflect on the evolution of the form throughout his career, with equal focus on the past and the future.

Interwoven with Napsha’s story is the filmmaker’s own struggle with unemployment and the search for stability. As the job hunt takes its toll, the film confronts fundamental questions about the meaning of work, its impact on family, and what it takes to build a sustainable life. (2024, 17m, Director: Daniel Napsha) + Director Q&A

Bang Bang: Backbone of A Mountain City - Chongqing, a city built on mountains in Southwestern China, remains a stronghold of porters known as “bang bang” who move goods along streets on the rugged terrain. But the porters are slowly fading from view in the face of modernization. From 400,000 people working as bang bang in the city in 2010, they have shrunk to fewer than 2,000, mostly elderly. (2025, 14m, China, Director: Guan Yi)

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GOLD STATUS is a project about the crushing nature of labor in late stage capitalism told through the lens of food delivery riders in New York City. They are the engine that allows the city to stay alive, keeping office and home workers fed through the day and families fed through the night, but they remain at the bleeding edge of capitalism. Twelve riders died in 2021 after being struck by cars, with almost no significant media coverage. They are treated as disposable, despite the vital role they play in keeping our city afloat.

The story of Gold Status is a day in the life of an undocumented immigrant delivery rider working for an unnamed app platform in New York City. After his beloved bicycle is stolen, he has to simultaneously pursue its return while also keeping his “status” up with the app that is constantly evaluating his performance as a worker and is ready to lower his status, and thus his earning potential, at any time.

Gold Status is a fun, engaging film that also documents the feeling we all have of what it’s like to live in a now where everything we do is being constantly evaluated by algorithms. It’s also a film about the precarity of the very “essential workers” that we depend on as a society to survive. (2023, 14m, Director: Charles Haine)
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