Synopsis: Nothing today can escape commodification: water, health, genes, knowledge…Will all the global commons become a mere commodity to be sold to the highest bidder?
Author Archives: Metro Council
The Price of Sugar (2006)
90m; U.S.
Director: Bill Haney
Synopsis (IMDB): On the Caribbean island of the Dominican Republic, tourists flock to pristine beaches, with little knowledge that a few miles away thousands of dispossessed Haitians are under armed guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane, most of which ends up in US kitchens. Cutting cane by machete, they work 14 hour days, 7 days a week, frequently without access to decent housing, electricity, clean water, education, healthcare or adequate nutrition. The Price of Sugar follows a charismatic Spanish priest, Father Christopher Hartley, as he organizes some of this hemisphere’s poorest people, challenging the powerful interests profiting from their work. This film raises key questions about where the products we consume originate, at what human cost they are produced and ultimately, where our responsibility lies.
The Price of Coal (1977)
U.K.
Director: Ken Loach
Synopsis (Wikipedia): A two-part television production. The first is comic, and deals with the preparations for an official visit by Prince Charles. The humour revolves around the expensive and ludicrous preparations that are required when there is an official visit from a member of the Royal Family. The workers recognise this and cannot take it seriously. Management recognises it but has to play the game. Special toilets must be constructed “just in case” and then destroyed after the visit. A worker is instructed to paint a brick holding up a window. On the eve of the visit the slogan “Scargill rules OK” is painted on a wall. The manager comments “When I find out who did that I’ll string him up by his knackers”. It is a surreal situation for many of the miners who obviously bear no love for Royalty.
The second deals with a pit accident where some men are killed, and attempts to rescue some trapped men. It is loosely based on the Lofthouse Colliery disaster in 1973.
The Problem of Meat (El Problema de La Carne) [1968]
Director: Mario Handler
Synopsis: Documentary on imperialist control of the meat industry and the strike of packing house workers to keep compnay from closing due to competition from US owned meat factories.
Professional Revolutionary: The Life of Saul Wellman (2004)
65m; U.S.
Director: Judith Montell & Ronald Aronson
Synopsis (Wikipedia): Under-educated, Wellman fought in the army, worked in a car factory for Ford and was employed at a printing company; Wellman fought against Fascism in both the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Wellman returned home at the start of the Cold War, to help organize and lead the Communist Party in America. Then when the 60s came along, Wellman latched onto the civil rights movement. The documentary deals with wheelchair-using Wellman, during the last years of his life, at an Iraq war protest. Throughout his life, Wellman was an organizer and passionate speaker.
Profit & Nothing But! Or Impolite Thoughts on the Class Struggle (2001)
52m
Diector: Raoul Peck
Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (2007)
58m; U.S.
Director: John Gianvito
Synopsis: Using Howard Zinn’s A People¹s History of the United States as a basis, filmmaker Gianvito crafts an elegant and elegiac chronicle of the progressive movement in America by visiting cemeteries, plaques, and monuments. Told without narration, Gianvito pays homage to those who fought for their beliefs and who have been forgotten by popular history.
The Progressive Era (1971)
20m; U.S.
Director: Encyclopedia Brittanica Educational Corporation
Synopsis: An overview of the social contrasts in American life from the Gilded Age through WWI, with comparisons to the New Deal and the Civil Rights Movement
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