Author Archives: Labor Film Database

An assistant manager whose promotion is long overdue has to train a new employee who—or rather, which—is in fact an artificial intelligence. Throughout the course, the assistant manager gets caught up in the dark secrets of the corporation. A brand new Sci-Fi short film set in the near—er than one thinks—future. Please email 2020@nlff.se for password to see the film. Feature short | 23 min | Director: Su Jin Choi | 2017 | Language: Korean | Subtitles: English

If you are to do everything that is recommended, for example sleep eight hours every night, cook your own food and actively choose your pension funds investment. There is a deficit of 1 hour and 11 minutes every day. And this is even before you’ve started working 8 hours a day five days a week. This film explores why there is never enough time for those things most of us consider important, like work, school or love and family life. Feature short | 3 min | Director: Björn Perborg | 2017 | Language: Swedish | Subtitles: English

During a compulsory information meeting for unemployed people, the friendly face of a ridiculous, Kafkaesque bureaucracy exposes the truth behind unemployment.

Feature short | 5 min | Director: Björn Perborg | 2018 | Language: Swedish | Subtitles: English

A Newsreel from A Pogovorit (Let’s talk) where Irina Shikhman conducts exclusive interviews with unexpected guests. In this report we will follow supply shortages, due to supplies sent abroad, for Russian hospitals during the Corona Pandemic. Why are trade unions a taboo topic for the media. Why are doctors not allowed to accept humanitarian aid? What are the hospital administrations afraid of? How are doctors kept silent? What are the union, the Alliance of Doctors, accused of? Newsreel | 106 min | Director: A Pogovorit | 2020 | Language: Russian | Subtitles: English

The film follows a movement which was very strong throughout Europe, in the late 1960s, especially in Italy, where the working methods of the institutional, often “Soviet”, large trade unions and upward cooperation were radically questioned. Spontaneously, “base committees” CUB (Comitati Unitari di Base) were formed at the assembly lines in the factories, which directly on the spot and with direct democracy formulated their concrete problems and ideological challenges. The movement led to major changes in the bargaining life and gave, among other things, the right to political meetings during working hours, without salary deductions.

Documentary | 29 min | Director: Carl Henrik Svenstedt and Stefania Svenstedt | 1969 | Language: Italienska | Subtitles: Swedish

A German-Bengali documentary film about the workers in the bamboo forests and on the rafts that lead the tribes to Dhaka. A group of men in North-Eastern Bangladesh are facing a dangerous mission. They are to conquer the river, with a 70 meter long raft. The journey is 300 kilometers long, always downstream. The freight: 25 000 bamboo trees. The men’s path begins in the dense forests of the Sylhet region in North-Eastern Bangladesh. Millions of bamboo trunks are hacked down there and transported by the workers along the dangerous mountain-stream into the valley. The bamboos reach the Kushiara River through hundreds of these channels. Here, the trunks are bundled – a giant raft arises. Then the long journey begins. Please email 2020@nlff.se for password to see the film. Documentary | 96 min | Director: Shaheen Dill-Riaz | 2019 | Language: Bengali | Subtitles: English

‘Air To Breathe’ is a film about a group of militant workers inside the Opel car plant in Bochum, Germany. The group was founded in 1972, initially with the help of revolutionaries from the 1968 movement. For over 40 years, the group fought for better working conditions inside the plant. Over time, their incessant rank-and-file activism made the workers in Bochum the most radical in the entire German metal sector: Opel Bochum saw several wildcat strikes, and a persistent and successful fight for the reduction of daily working time. Their activities culminated in a six days wildcat strike in 2004. The film is screened in collaboration with labournet.tv.

Documentary | 70 min | Production team: labournet.tv | 2020 | Language: German | Subtitles: English

An exploration into Amazon’s business models and practices, from its inception to present day. “Everything, right now”. By riding the digital revolution and betting on compulsive buying and immediate needs, Amazon has built the largest supermarket in the history of mankind. Perhaps not the best known part of the commercial war machine, Amazon’s “cloud” is now essential today to the functioning of the Internet. Richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos claims to reform the concept of trade and labour. And after having conquered the Earth, he is now aiming for the Moon. Please email 2020@nlff.se for password to see the film.

Documentary | 78 min | Director: Adrien Pinon, Thomas Lafarge | 2019 | Language: French, English, Danish | Subtitles: English

Resigned to his fate as a worker in a notoriously villainous chemical plant, Jay realizes that he must not only find a way to support his family, but also overcome grave social and legal injustice in the system. A bollywood film about union fights.

Bollywood feature | 106 min | Director: Sanjay Patel | 2017 | Language: Hindi | Subtitles: English

Since 2008, unusual things have been happening in northern Italy. Companies, the political class and the media are using the onset of the economic crisis to further undermine workers’ rights. They have succeeded in this up until now. On the other side, a lively and strong resistance has been forming at the bottom end of the wage scale. Of all people, it is the non-permanent and largely migrant workers in the logistics sector who have, through solidarity and effective organising, been successful in overcoming their isolation and degrading working conditions. A struggle that hasn’t just changed their working conditions but has changed their whole lives. The film is screened in collaboration with labournet.tv.

Documentary | 87 min | Director: Rosa Cannone, Johanna Schellhagen | 2015 | Language: Italian | Subtitles: English