90m; U.S.
Director: Rob Epstein
Synopsis: In 1978, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco city council, becoming the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California. One year later, he and Mayor George Moscone were shot and killed by Milk’s fellow council member, former police officer and firefighter Dan White. Won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Includes discussion of Milk’s early alliance with the Teamsters in taking on Coors Beer.
110m; Estonia/Finland/Sweden
Director: Veiko Õunpuu
Synopsis: Veiko Õunpuu’s follow-up to the award-winning AUTUMN BALL (2008 AFI European Union Film Showcase) confirms him as one of Europe’s brightest young talents. Filmed in striking widescreen black and white, Õunpuu’s tale follows the passive, put-upon Tony (hangdog Taavi Eelmaa) through increasingly surreal tableaux: his father’s funeral procession, interrupted by a car crash; a bourgeois dinner party disrupted by vagrants; the shuttering of a factory and firing of its workers; and a rural police station manned by comically grotesque cops from which Tony, on a whim, helps a mysterious young beauty to escape. Following her to a sinister cabaret, Tony may have discovered the heart of darkness of today’s Eastern Europe. Winner, Horizons Award, 2009 Venice Film Festival; East of the West Award, 2010, Karlovy Vary Film Festival; Official Selection, 2010 Sundance and Rotterdam Film Festivals.
30m; U.S.
Director: Marjorie Hunt, Paul Wagner
Cast: Vincent Palumbo and Roger Morigi
Synopsis (IMDB): A look at some of the last stone carvers working in the United States, those completing the sculptures adorning the Washington National Cathedral. They discuss their craft and the cultural forces which helped define it, as well as the fading use of stone ornamentation in architecture and the history of stone carving, and they tour the cathedral to point out the history behind some of the work.
115m; Serbia/Germany/Hungary
Director: Srdan Golubovic
Synopsis: Modern film noir reflecting the true face of Serbian “society in transition,” THE TRAP is an archetypal story of a parent’s worst nightmare—a dying child—and how far a man is willing to go to save him. In post-Milosevic’s Serbia there is no more war, however, normal life remains almost unreachable, and when Mladen is offered an only chance to save his son, he must confront moral and existential demons and decide how to measure the worth of a human life.
133m; U.S.
Director: John Frankenheimer
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield and Jeanne Moreau
Synopsis: It is the fall of 1944 and the Allies are advancing to liberate Paris. German Colonel Von Waldheim decides to seize hundreds of France’s most famous artworks and ship them back to Germany via train. The French resistance wants to stop this and a team of working-class train operators and workmen are given the mission.
87m; U.S.
Director: George Stoney, Judith Helfand & Susanne Rostock
Synopsis: THE UPRISING OF ’34 tells the story of the General Strike of 1934, a massive but little-known strike by hundreds of thousands of Southern cotton mill workers during the Great Depression. The mill workers’ defiant stance – and the remarkable grassroots organizing that led up to it – challenged a system of mill owner control that had shaped life in cotton mill communities for decades.
Contact: First Run Icarus Films (http://www.frif.com/cat97/t-z/the_upri.html) / http://www.pbs.org/pov/uprisingof34/
3m; Canada
Director: Daniel Fewings
Synopsis: A short video containing a bluegrass song about how all members of the education community work together to keep the public school system strong.
15m; U.S.
Director: Mary Filippo
Synopsis: Veteran experimental filmmaker Mary Filippo tackles issues of work, class and gender roles in this visually captivating and provocative autobiographical piece. At the core of this engaging autobiographical piece is an interview with Filippo’s mother, as she recounts incidents of exploitation and gender discrimination she experienced working in jewelry factories in the 1940’s and 50’s. The filmmaker contrasts her mother’s quiet acquiescence with her own attitudes about social injustices of her culture through a striking montage of images and audio clips—moving the viewer to consider connections between consumerism and global labor practices, motherhood, money and happiness. – http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c615.shtml
85m; U.S.
Director: Derik Wingo
Cast: Derik Wingo, Lorrainne Petersen and Scott Vogel
Synopsis: Taylor Starks and his co-workers, all aspiring actors, toil in a Los Angeles restaurant while “waiting” for their big break.
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