Laura Carreira’s European Film Award–winning debut feature, On Falling, follows Aurora, a young Portuguese woman who relocates to Scotland to work as a “picker” in a vast e-commerce warehouse. Within a world governed by algorithms, productivity targets and relentless surveillance, her days unfold in strict, mechanical rhythms, while her human connections slowly erode.
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Through restrained, minimalist storytelling, the film examines the invisible labour force of the contemporary economy, capturing the lived experience of isolation, alienation and migrant precarity. Carreira’s direction remains intimate and unsentimental, focusing on Aurora’s interior landscape — where physical exhaustion and emotional solitude merge into one another as quiet by-products of a system designed for efficiency rather than empathy.

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Laura Carreira is a Portuguese writer-director based in Scotland. Her work consistently explores themes of migration, social mobility and economic vulnerability. Her short films, including Red Hill (2018) and The Shift (2020), screened at numerous international festivals and received a BAFTA Scotland nomination.
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On Falling marks her feature debut. Premiering in the Discovery section of the Toronto International Film Festival in 2024, the film went on to screen at major international festivals worldwide, culminating in recognition from the European Film Academy. Carreira’s cinema is defined by its precision, emotional restraint and unwavering attention to the quiet dignity — and quiet despair — of working lives.

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Director: Laura Carreira
Cast: Joana Santos, Inês Vaz, Piotr Sikora, Neil Leiper
Cinematography: Karl Kürten
Screenwriter: Laura Carreira
Producer: Jack Thomas-O’Brien, Mário Patrocínio
Editor: Helle Le Fevre
Music: Ines Adriana, Joshua Sabin
Distributor: –
Colour: colour
Run time: 104 mins

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