Limits of Europe

Synopsis

A prominent Czech journalist leaves her family and joins “cheap labour force” in Western Europe. Undercover, she works at an asparagus farm in Germany, tries her hand as a maid at a hotel in Ireland and takes care of the elderly in France. She experiences first-hand the struggles of Eastern European low-wage workers whose sacrifice and hard work allow for the Western society’s comfort. What is the real price that Europe pays for exploiting its own citizens? How do the lives of economic migrants, who have been forced to leave their children and elderly parents, look like? And why are privileged Europeans looking the other way?

#documentary

Apolena Rychlíková is a Czech documentary filmmaker and journalist. She has been working on social issues, inequality, poverty and social exclusion for a long time. She is the author of several films and cooperates with Czech Television and Czech Radio. Her feature debut Limits of work (2017) won the Czech joy award at IDFF Jihlava 2017, the Audience Award and the Czech Film Critics Award and was screened at a number of international festivals. She is the winner of the 2017 Journalist Award for Best Commentary, the winner of the Journalist Quail Award for Young Journalists and the first Czech woman to be nominated for a prestigious European journalism award. Her second feature film, Limits of Europe (2024), had its world premiere in two competitions at the prestigious CPH:DOX festival in Copenhagen.