2020 Shortlist | THE LABOR FILM DATABASE

Migrants come to the city of East China looking for a better life, but instead find few opportunities and poor living conditions that create violence and oppression.

Initial release: September 9, 2016
Director: Wang Bing
Screenplay: Wang Bing
Cast: Ling Ling, Huang Lei
Awards: Orizzonti Award for Best Screenplay
Nominations: Orizzonti Award for Best Actor, Orizzonti Award for Best Actress

‘Bitter Money’ and ‘Bitter Rice’: Migrant Workers Face Toil and Trouble

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 5, 2019 in 2020 Shortlist, A: New/Just Added, Cities-Urban, Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Farm & Food, Immigrants/Immigration, Migrant workers

Life on the Line

05 Oct

2015 ‧ Drama/Action ‧ 1h 37m

After a family tragedy, Beau Ginner rises to be foreman in a Texas lineman team, upgrading overhead power cables and preventing disasters. However, there is friction when his college-bound niece Bailey’s on-off boyfriend Duncan joins the crew, while another new recruit is hiding PTSD symptoms.

Release date: 2016 (USA)
Director: David Hackl
Music composed by: Jeff Toyne
Executive producers: Chad Dubea, Rosa Morris Peart, Shawn Williamson, Bryant Pike, Jamie Goehring
Producers: Phillip Glasser, Marvin Peart

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/movies/life-on-the-line-review-john-travolta-kate-bosworth.html

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/life-on-the-line-2016

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 5, 2019 in 2020 Shortlist, A: New/Just Added, Construction Trades, Drama, Safety & Health, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), Working Class

Nightcaller

05 Oct

Director: Alexander Humilde
2018; 6m

“In the urban jungle of Manila, the call centre capital of the world, anonymous call centre agents from Manila spill the beans on the Philippines’ most in-demand job. Their stories reveal prevalent truths about the effects of rapid westernization, all of which take place just on the other side of our phone calls.”

Alexander Humilde’s Nightcaller documentary debuts on Air Canada flights

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 5, 2019 in 2020 Shortlist, A: New/Just Added, Documentary, Global Economy, Service Workers, Technology

System Error

05 Oct

2018 ‧ Documentary ‧ 1h 36m

“System Error” seeks answers to the great contradictions of our time and makes it clear why, despite everything, everything continues as before. The film shows the world from the perspective of people fascinated by the possibilities of capitalism. Whether European financial strategists, American hedge fund managers or Brazilian meat producers: They cannot, must not or do not even want to imagine a world without an expanding economy.

A humorous personal and essay film addressing architecture, habitation, space, density, xenophobia, gentrification and urban development. A power struggle between mountain peasants who have been raising milk cows on common land and a village bailiff trying to gain power driving them off the land.

Initial release: May 10, 2018 (Germany)
Director: Florian Opitz
Screenplay: Florian Opitz
Cinematography: Andy Lehmann
Producers: Florian Opitz, Jan Krüger

WEBSITE

livia@icarusfilms.com
718-488-8900

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 5, 2019 in 2020 Shortlist, A: New/Just Added, Big Business/Corporations, Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Farm & Food, Finance, Global Economy, Philosophy, Technology

Time Thieves

05 Oct

2018 ‧ Documentary ‧ 1h 25m

A look at the puzzle of “time poverty,” which equates to the more people try to save time, the less they seem to have of it.

Initial release: 2018
Director: Cosima Dannoritzer
Screenplay: Cosima Dannoritzer
Producers: Christian Popp, Carles Brugueras, Marieke van den Bersselaar

livia@icarusfilms.com 718-488-8900

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Posted by Labor Film Database on October 5, 2019 in 2020 Shortlist, A: New/Just Added, Automation, Big Business/Corporations, Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Slavery, Technology