Ken Loach-Bread and Roses (2000)

From acclaimed director Ken Loach comes the gripping story of a group of immigrant workers who take a stand against the million dollar corporations who employ them. Newly arrived illegal immigrant Maya (Pilar Padilla) has just joined her sister on the job as a janitor in a downtown LA office building. Appalled at the work conditions and unfair labor practices, she teams up with Sam (Adrien Brody), a labor organizer, to fight their ruthless employer. LionsGate




Maya is a quick-witted young woman who comes over the Mexican border without papers and makes her way to the LA home of her older sister Rosa. Rosa gets Maya a job as a janitor: a non-union janitorial service has the contract, the foul-mouthed supervisor can fire workers on a whim, and the service-workers' union has assigned organizer Sam Shapiro to bring its "justice for janitors" campaign to the building. Sam finds Maya a willing listener, she's also attracted to him. Rosa resists, she has an ailing husband to consider. The workers try for public support; management intimidates workers to divide and conquer. Rosa and Maya as well as workers and management may be set to collide. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0212826/plotsummary)




Bread and Roses exposes the everyday life of poor Latin-Americans and their friends and family who are not living legally in this country. Many reviewers correctly point out that this movie highlights the brutal mistreatment of these human beings as if they were pieces of garbage or trash. The film also explores the high price of surviving in America for both legal and illegal immigrants. Bread And Roses accomplishes all this with a sensitivity that rarely seen in a motion picture. (amazon.com