Tala is a young Filipino domestic worker living with a bourgeois family on the north shore of Montreal. As she runs through her daily chores, dealing with the eccentricities of her employers, an unexpected phone call puts her at great risk of getting fired. Shot in a single long take and inspired by the current ‘Live-In Caregiver’ program of the Canadian federal government, ‘Tala’ tells a story of subtle oppression and re-empowerment.
Directed by: Pier-Phillippe Chevigny
This stunning story of global worker cooperation is told by the recounting of events some 35 years ago, as Augusto Pinochet, backed by the US government, murdered a democratically elected leader, Salvadore Allende. As thousands of union members, students, leftists and all manner of Allende supporters were rounded up into killing centers, Pinochet began using his small aircraft fleet to strafe and attack rebel holdouts in the countryside. Scottish union airplane engine mechanics (where the jets had been built) saw news footage of this brutality and decided to take action to save fellow workers they’d never even known about, much less met. A heroic and moving story.
Directed by: Felipe Bustos Sierra
http://www.scottishdocinstitute.com/films/nae-pasaran/
“Tangled Threads” chronicles labor rights activist Kalpona Akter’s organizing efforts in Bangladesh’s garment industry before and after the Rana Plaza building collapse, which claimed the lives of at least 1,138 garment workers. It does so against the backdrop of two very different worlds: New York’s modeling industry, on the one hand, and Bangladesh’s garment industry, on the other. Produced by STZFilms.
Directed by: Sara Ziff
Sara Ziff is a New York-based filmmaker, fashion model, and labor activist. She co-directed and produced the feature documentary “Picture Me” (2009), which shed light on labor issues in the modeling industry, particularly sexual abuse. Currently she serves as co-founder and executive director of the Model Alliance, a nonprofit labor group for models working in the American fashion industry. Ziff first traveled to Bangladesh in 2012, when she began collaborating with the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS) and the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) to try to organize workers across fashion’s supply chain.
https://www.facebook.com/stzfilms
A sharply aimed film about Wisconsin and Chicago teachers fighting back against the onslaught of anti-union governors and big city mayors willing to sell out public education to the burgeoning power of the for profit charter school movement – which just happens to be mostly union-free.Through the eyes of public school teachers fighting for the benefit of all their students, Schoolidarity tells the interwoven story of the two most significant American workers’ rights struggles of recent years: the weeks-long 2011 mass occupation of the Wisconsin capitol, and the Chicago teachers strike of 2012. Schoolidarity provides a history of the issues surrounding the privatization of urban public schools in the US. By documenting the ascent of the activist teacher caucus CORE, Chicago’s public schools crisis is analyzed through the lens of the assault on public sector unions, where defeats are just as important to study as victories in order to insure education justice for all.
Directed by: Andrew Friend
http://vimeopro.com/insurgentproductions/andrew-friend/video/51703399
What would you do? Your boss gives you three days’ notice that your workplace is closing. You will be unemployed in a recession, without the severance the law says you deserve. If you are the employees of Republic Windows and Doors… you fight back! For six days in December of 2008, laid-off Chicago factory workers took over their closing workplace, declaring they would not leave until the owners and creditors agreed to pay them the severance they were owed. Republic’s credit line had been cut off by Bank of America, which had just received billions of dollars in federal bank bailout money. These 260 workers decided, “If I don’t fight, I know I’ll lose. If I do fight, at least I stand a chance of winning.” In these revolutionary times, when a new movement has risen from below to occupy Wall Street and expose the greed of bosses and banks, the workers of Republic are a beacon of hope and optimism, a microcosm of how everyday people may be the most qualified to forge a better world.
Directed by: Andrew Friend
http://vimeopro.com/insurgentproductions/andrew-friend/video/30882647
Esther Nisenthal was 15 in October of 1942 when the Jews of her village in Poland were ordered by Nazis to report to a nearby train station. Esther’s story of survival is extraordinary because of her method of storytelling- stitching and embroidering. It comes to us in a series of 36 large fabric collages, intricately embroidered in vivid color, created more than 40 years after the war. They depict one young girl’s eyewitness account of the war, scenes of tragedy and trauma juxtaposed with the exquisite beauty.
Directed by: Nina Shapiro- Perl
http://artandremembrance.org/our-work/film/
Working conditions on the banana and pineapple plantations of Latin America are tough… here workers tell of trade union persecution, low wages and exposure to pesticides… made for the Make Fruit Fair campaign – to find out more about the social and environmental impacts of pesticides in Costa Rica.
Directed by: Jan Nimmo
http://www.jannimmo.com/PPHL.html
When Scottish artist, Jan Nimmo, travels to Ecuador, the world’s largest exporter of bananas, to gather workers’ testimonies, she observes the formation of the first trade unions in the banana sector for 30 years. The Los Alamos banana workers decide to go on strike for the most basic of rights. Alvaro Noboa, Ecuador’s richest man owns the plantation’s owner, Bonita Brands, and Noboa doesn’t like unions. Bonita is the world’s fourth largest banana company yet the workers earn a pittance, are exposed to a cocktail of toxic agrochemicals and their living conditions are appalling. Bonita is a powerful eyewitness account of what happens to workers who dare to stand up against a powerful oligarch.
Directed by: Jan Nimmo
http://www.jannimmo.com/Bonita.html
Never Got a Dime is the story of Lilly Ledbetter, a former manager at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Gadsden, Alabama. On January 29, 2009, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which extended the statute of limitations to reset 180 days after each discriminatory paycheck is issued. Ledbetter will always be remembered as a champion of women’s rights and equal pay.
Directed by: Shelby Hadden
This archive of filmed oral histories was created by filmmakers Anne de Mare, Kirsten Kelly and Elizabeth Hemmerdinger under the guidance of the irreplaceable Dr. Michael Nash. The 48 women represented here provide a complex portrait of Rosie the Riveter, taking the viewer beyond the iconic “We Can Do It” poster girl and deep into the experiences real Rosies from diverse backgrounds, challenging the popular perception of women in American History. The filmmakers were inspired by the extraordinary women of The Real Rosie The Riveter Project to develop this material into an animated documentary project using new media technologies called The Girl With The Rivet Gun.
Directed by: Kirsten Kelly, Anne de Mare
http://dlib.nyu.edu/rosie/node/1029
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