How Long Is “The Forgotten Space”?

As the global economy in the 21st Century is increasingly tied to cheap labor in China and the Third World, the corporations that make it their business to exploit the low cost of manufacturing in such places also have to deal with the practicalities of getting those goods from one place to another. As a consequence, shipping has become a serious business in itself, and the people who control it have set out to make it profitable by cutting back on every possible expense. Filmmakers Allan Sekula and Noël Burch explore the underside of the shipping trade and the lives of the low-level workers who are at once aiding and being victimized by the advance of globalism in the documentary The Forgotten Space. Featuring interviews with California truck drivers, Chinese electronics plant employees, and merchant sailors who haul endless shipping containers across the ocean, The Forgotten Space was an official selection at the 2010 Venice Film Festival.