10/10/25 – 19:30 The Venue
UK 2024
Dir: Laura Carreira
Cert 15
104 mins
Starring: Joana Santos, Inês Vaz, Piotr Sikora
Social realism, in the vein of Ken Loach and the Dardenne brothers, meets something akin to sci-fi dystopia in this impressive and disturbing début feature from Scotland-based Portuguese director Laura Carreira. Aurora is a young Portuguese immigrant working as a “picker” in a vast Scottish warehouse. Her calm, bland exterior masks a hidden anguish as the working conditions slowly grind her down. It is work that seems devoid of all human interaction, turning human beings into exhausted robots. It is about to push Aurora to the edge. This is a world of sadness and social isolation, experienced by all too many people – the human cost of the contemporary boom in online convenience shopping.
Trailer: