A Film by Lisette Olsthoorn

2025 | 58 mins | Digital Video | Color | 25fps

What is work? What do we want from it?

At its heart, In This Together tells the stories of Uber drivers in Amsterdam who, after experiencing financial difficulties, find that it is impossible to voice their concerns to Uber and get the people behind the app to listen. Algorithmic management has ensured drivers can be denied access to work at any moment, while at the same time it has become nearly impossible for drivers to get in touch with a human representative of the company. Deliberate erosion of direct workplace relationships has created a void that can be exploited for profit.

While documenting the drivers’ struggles against exploitation and abuse, the film inquires into power relations between those working in front and behind the lens. We see the drivers and the filmmaker collaborate in the making of the film. Together, they figure out how they want to tell their stories. Through reenactments and reflections, the film exposes, to the viewer and to the people in it, how stories of work resonate beyond the workers who tell them. It creates a cinematic space that evokes questions about solidarity, the capacity to listen, and what we want from work. In This Together shows how work puts us into often conflicting positions, forcing us to mistreat each other. Against this, it shows that we can fracture the screen of compassion and pity and enact solidarity in its place.