Author Archives: Labor Film Database

Julia de Guzman
julia@jdgstudio.com

We were never supposed to know her name. She was a poor Irish immigrant who survived famine and war, fire and plague. Unable to save her husband or their four small children, she dedicated her life to saving working families everywhere. The robber barons called her “the most dangerous woman in America,” but workers called her “Mother Jones.”

Upton Sinclair said of her, “she had force, she had wit, she had the fire of indignation; she was the walking wrath of god.” Mother Jones said of herself “I’m not a humanitarian, I’m a hellraiser.” Most famously, she told her followers to, “pray for the Dead and fight like hell for the living.” She educated, agitated, and organized the dispossessed and showed America what it could be. 

With the gap between the rich and poor growing wider by the day, the just and democratic society Mother Jones fought for is under attack. Her hour has come again. It is time that her story and the fierce struggles of working families are brought back to life.

Drawn from her autobiography, letters, speeches, and interviews, FIGHT LIKE HELL is as bold and forceful as Mother Jones herself. Adapted from Obie Award-winning Actress Kaiulani Lee’s one-woman play “Can’t Scare Me,” FIGHT LIKE HELL was written and performed by Lee and directed by Emmy-nominated and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Ian Cheney.

by JR, Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, 2020, 10 min

A peasant community gathers on a plateau on the border between three regions to celebrate the funeral of peasant agriculture. A cinematic action to prevent the disappearance of a millenary culture

by Olga Torrico, Italy, 2020, 10 min

Alice works at a gas station. She no longer plays and has sunk within herself the fire that burned within her for the music. When her old music teacher shows up on a hot summer day, Alice begins to wonder if she’s been without her gasoline for too long.

by Mattia Epifani, Italy, 2020, 15 min Father Athanasius is a young Orthodox monk who lives in a monastery perched in the mountains of Greece but cultivates an unspeakable passion for luxury and high fashion

by Paola Piscitelli, Fabio Corbellini, Italy, 2020, 14 min One of the hidden faces of our cities: the incessant work of the messengers who deal, in precarious conditions, with home deliveries for large platforms

by Antonio Maciocco, Italy, 2020, 15 min

56 years in 10 square meters. This is the time that Mr. Gavino spent in his barber’s salon, a small shop in the historic center of Sassari. 56 years in 10 square meters could be like a life sentence. Instead, it is about time and the measure of a happy life

by Iacopo Zanon, Italy, 2020, 15 min. Carla is 25 and works as a waitress in a restaurant. Giulia is the same age and to earn a living she strips in front of the webcam on the Internet. One night the two girls will end up needing each other

by Lucia Lorè, Italy, 2020, 15 min A small seaside town in the south of Puglia. The choice of a little girl. A struggle for self-determination, to break those cages imposed by society and be able to become the first Pescatora in a world of fishermen