9m; Australia
Director: Adrian Francis
Synopsis: When the 9-to-5 shift ends and workers head home, Maia, an office cleaner, begins her workday. Adrian Francis accompanies her on her rounds as she ruminates on the solitary nature of her job, insisting that it is not a lonely one: She does not live with people themselves, but with the objects they have left behind.
110m; Austria
Director: Erwin Wagenhofer
Synopsis: “Follow the money” is a mantra in both crime and business, perhaps coincidentally and perhaps not. For director Erwin Wagenhofer, whose 2005 documentary sensation WE FEED THE WORLD traced the global path of food from raw materiel to table, it was perhaps inevitable that his follow-up would be the visual tone poem to commerce, LET’S MAKE MONEY. From Indian slums to Hong Kong boardrooms, the Spanish real estate bubble to the World Bank, Wagenhofer is there to juxtapose captains of industry-“there’s a famous saying that the best time to buy is when there’s blood on the streets,” says one-with those actual streets, where laborers work in primitive conditions and billboards offer goods and services they can’t possibly afford.
90m; U.K.
Director: Stephen Frears
Cast: Anthony Borrows, Ian Hart and Claire Hackett
Synopsis: Film follows a family and the effects of the Great Depression on the working class in 1930’s Liverpool.
41m; Turkey
Director: Petra Holzer, Selçuk Erzurumlu, Ethem Özgüven Kurgu
Synopsis: Tuzla graveyard overlooks massive shipbuilding area where great profits are made and workers die.
Contact: http://4857-documentary.blogspot.com/ petramh@gmail.com
80m; U.S.
Director: Tony Buba
Synopsis: Tony Buba, a film maker from Braddock, Pennsylvania, tells the story of his hometown’s decline (along with the rest of the steel mill towns along the Monongahela River) while he dreams of making higher budget films. The picture documents, in a lighthearted way, the community anxiety and activism that accompanied the failure of the steel industry around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Sweet Sal the street hustler tries to make it big in Tony’s movies
30m; Turkey
Director: Güliz Sağlam, Feryal Saygılıgil
Synopsis: Documentary about the resistance of Emine Arslan, fired from the Desa Sefaköy factory in Istanbul, and the female workers who were fired from the Düzce factory. All the women who were fired are union members. The film reveals the working conditions of women, the experience they gain while organizing, the advantages of resistance, their relationship with the union, their hopes and expectations and the Istanbul Women’s Platform, which is in solidarity with them throughout the strike.
Contact: Güliz Saglam Documentary maker tel:0090 532 583 74 55 gulizsaglam@hotmail.com
Director: Harold Mayer
Synopsis: Strike and development of Drug and Hospital Workers Union in New York City.
29m; U.S.
Director: Martin Hoade
Synopsis: This is an episode of the NBC religious program “The Eternal Light” and was produced by the Jewish Theological Seminary. It is a docu-drama presentation of the life of Samuel Gompers, a key founder and first head of the American Federation of Labor from the 1880s to the 1920s.
Contact: The film can be viewed here: http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc13671/m1/
43m; Senegal
Director: Djibril Diop Mambety
Cast: Lissa Balera, Aminata Fall and Tayerou M’Baye
Synopsis: African master Djibril Diop Mambety’s final film brings us the feisty Sili Lam, a twelve year old paraplegic who becomes the first girl to sell a daily newspaper in the competitive world of young male newspaper vendors. She takes on a policeman whom she accuses of shaking her down as well as the boys who taunt her. When some boys take her newspapers and crutches, and her friend asks her “What next?” she triumphantly responds, “We continue”. The scenes – moving, satiric and comic, are expertly played by non-professional actors to a score by acclaimed musician Wasis Diop (Mambety’s brother).
Contact: The film can be viewed here: http://www.fandor.com/films/the_little_girl_who_sold_the_sun
83m; Argentina
Director: Jorge Gaggero
Cast: Norma Aleandro, Norma Argentina and Marcos Mundstock
Synopsis (IMDB): A wealthy woman and her live-in housekeeper must adjust their entrenched routine and relationship when Buenos Aires is plunged into economic crisis.,
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