Comments for THE LABOR FILM DATABASE

Comment on Global Labor Film Festival: London & Manchester by 2013 Global Labor Film Festival | THE LABOR FILM DATABASE

2013 Global Labor Film Festival | THE LABOR FILM DATABASE — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 13:24:23 +0000

[...] Labor Film Festival) London, UK: May 12: Fire in Babylon (London Socialist Film Co-op) London & Manchester, UK: May 1 & 2: Burn (London Labour Film Festival) New York City, NY: May 15: Dreamwork China [...]

Comment on The Second Cooler (est 2013) by Ellin Jimmerson

Ellin Jimmerson — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 14:25:25 +0000

The Second Cooler is an official selection for the 2013 Peace on Earth Film Festival, Chicago, March 7-10. The Second Cooler will screen March 8 at about 6:30 PM. There also will be a time for Q n A with Ellin Jimmerson. Check the POEFF website for exact times.

Comment on Drivers Wanted (2012) by UCS News Service

UCS News Service — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 23:04:30 +0000

The New York street system consists of 6174 miles of mostly asphalt roads and legend has it that a real yellow cab driver knows this jungle like the back of his hand. The filmmakers Jean Tsien and Joshua Weinstein mixed with the colourful community of drivers, mechanics and office clerks working for a long-established taxi company in Queens to document that the original ideal of the common man’s Big Apple is still very much alive and present in this slightly seedy enterprise. They avoided the trap of producing a simple assertion of an idyllic or even paradisiacal situation, opting instead for a highly enjoyable demonstration of that unspectacular and delightful feeling described by Hemingway when he remembered an encounter with some craftsmen during a stay in Paris in the 1920s: “It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood.“ What’s left? The certainty that it can’t hurt to feel grateful for little things occasionally. – Ralph Eue (DOK Leipzig Programmer)

Comment on Kameradschaft (1931) by Rochester Labor Film Series

Rochester Labor Film Series — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 17:38:56 +0000

"In 1958 film critics and historians held a referendum in Brussels on the thirty greatest films ever made. Kameradschaft ended up as film number twenty-six on the list, ranked with films such as The Rules of the Game and Citizen Kane. I don’t know if this film would make a similar list today, but I have to say that half a century after that poll, Kameradschaft still stands out as one of the most remarkable films ever made..." - Paolo Cherchi Usai in his introduction to the Rochester Labor Film series screening on 2 November 2001.

Comment on How Green Was My Valley (1941) by Rochester Labor Film Series

Rochester Labor Film Series — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 17:34:22 +0000

"When Twentieth Century Fox producer Darryl Zanuck bought the movie rights to How Green Was My Valley, he had in mind an epic film to rival Gone With The Wind...But Zanuck was unhappy with the portrayal of the mine owners in the initial studio script which adhered closely to the novel’s account of union organizing and the strike: “I’ll be damned if I want to go around making the employer class out-and-out villains in this day and age”... - Jon Garlock, in his introduction to the Rochester Labor Film series screening on 25 September 2009

Comment on H-2 Worker (1990) by Rochester Labor Film Series

Rochester Labor Film Series — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 17:13:46 +0000

" I think this film will offend your sense of decency and your sense of honesty and your sense and belief in justice and democracy and freedom, and I’ve got a whole lot of words I can use to talk about what we believe in and what we feel exists in our country. As you watch the film I think you’re going to be offended by its examples of racism in our society. It’s really evident when you look at the H-2A workers and they’re all black, and you look at the members of the Department of Labor and you look at the growers and you look at the festival in celebration of a great harvest that’s attended by all white people as the black Jamaican workers get on a plane furnished by the company and go back to Jamaica..." - Jim Schmidt, in his introduction at the Rochester Labor Series screening on 13 March 1991

Comment on Compliance (2012) by Rochester Labor Film Series

Rochester Labor Film Series — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 17:09:12 +0000

"When Compliance debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, and during its press screenings, some people walked out not far into the story. One viewer is reported to have yelled while exiting, “Oh, give me a [bleeping] break!” I, too, was ready to abandon the film because it seemed exploitative and contrived. But, I happened to recall the screen-filling opening message that said, “Based on true events.” As films with that message have become common over the past decade, such messages may have lost their punch, which might explain the walkouts. But do take heed of that notice, for knowing beforehand that the events really happened might help temper the incredulity the film evokes. Or, it might work to heighten our disbelief, for if you avoid walking out, you are still likely to squirm. “How could they have done this?” we will undoubtedly ask." - Vincent Serravallo, in his introduction to the Rochester Labor Film series screening 29 September 2012

Comment on A Nous La Liberte (1932) (aka Freedom for Us) by Rochester Labor Film Series

Rochester Labor Film Series — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:52:27 +0000

"a musical comedy about the alienation of modern work. It’s the kind of film that might have resulted had the Marx Brothers been engaged to make Metropolis rather than Fritz Lang. René Clair shared with the Marx Brothers a mocking disregard for most forms of authority and a joyous pleasure in the subversion of all forms of social pretension and bourgeois decorum. In fact, the Marx Brothers borrowed material from tonight’s film when they made A Night at the Opera in 1935..." - Mark Lynn Anderson, in his introduction to the film's screening at the Rochester Labor Film Series on 5 November 1999.

Comment on A Grin Without a Cat (Le Fond de l’air est rouge) (1977) by Rochester Labor Film Series

Rochester Labor Film Series — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:41:18 +0000

" I urge you to pay attention not only to what Marker is saying but how he is saying it. A Grin Without a Cat is a complex film. A montage mainly of other filmmakers’ work that juxtaposes footage that was never used, as well as images taped from television broacasts, Grin asks us to think not only about what happened in the past but about how we know what happened, how the past exists as memory — memory of images, the interpretation of images, the loss of images — how we (and others, including Marker himself) can manipulate the past…" - Jon Garlock, in his September 12, 2003 introduction to the film's screening at the Rochester (NY) Labor Film Series

Comment on Portraits from Cameroon by Jan Nimmo

Jan Nimmo — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 06:29:26 +0000

Full length version (18 min) and individual testimonies at this link:
http://www.jannimmo.com/Cameroon.html
and in Spanish
http://www.jannimmo.com/Cameroon2.html