4m; U.S.
Director: Jonathan Browning, Shaun Greenspan
Synopsis: The tables are turned on a group of white collar professionals in this amusing tale set in a parallel universe right here on earth.
Contact: Youtube link to watch the movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XGJq8wrw5I Film
Website: http://www.thejobtheshort.com/
Synopsis: On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis to support AFSCME sanitation workers. That evening, he delivered his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech to a packed room of supporters. The next day, he was assassinated. (NOTE: see At The River I Stand for a 56m version of this issue).
58m; U.S.
Director: Harold Mayer and Lynne Rhodes Mayer
Synopsis: The Inheritance shows what life was really like for immigrants and working Americans from the turn of the century through the fight for civil rights in the 1960s. This stirring history of our country shows their struggle to put down roots, form labor unions, survive wars, and finally, create a new and better life for themselves and our nation.
Our film explores a landscape largely unknown to the present generation—the dim sweatshops, coal mines and textile mills filled with children; the anxious years of the depression and labor’s bloody struggle for the right to organize; the battlefields of WW I and II; the seldom seen newsreel footage of the Memorial Day massacre at The Republic Steel strike in Chicago; the civil rights struggle— as every generation fights again to preserve and extend its freedoms. This is the film’s theme.
Contact: The film is available in 4 parts on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWDPHQX0S0w
Harold Mayer and Lynne Rhodes Mayer
Harold Mayer Productions
New Milford, CT
121m; U.S.
Director: David Swift
Cast: Robert Morse, Michele Lee and Rudy Vallee
Synopsis: Armed with a “How to…” manual, an ambitious window washer seeks to climb the corporate ladder.
16m
Director: Min Sook Lee
Synopsis (CUPE, Local 1011): This short documentary film produced by Min Sook Lee chronicles the struggles of municipal workers in Windsor, Ontario after they are forced to go on strike to protect benefits and pension for future generations. Premiered on the floor of the CUPE Ontario Convention, held May 27-31.
Website: http://vimeo.com/4967233
directed by Sergei Eisenstein
121m
The General Line was begun in 1927 as a celebration of the collectivization of agriculture, as championed by old-line Bolshevik Leon Trotsky. Hoping to reach a wide audience, the director forsook his usual practice of emphasizing groups by concentrating on a single rural heroine. Eisenstein briefly abandoned this project to film October: Ten Days That Shook the World, in honour of the 10th anniversary of the Revolution. By the time he was able to return to this film, the Party’s attitudes had changed and Trotsky had fallen from grace. As a result, the film was hastily re-edited and sent out in 1929 under a new title,The Old and the New. In later years, archivists restored The General Line to an approximation of Eisenstein’s original concept. Much of the director’s montage-like imagery—such as using simple props to trace the progress from the agrarian customs of the 19th-century to the more mechanized procedures of the 20th—was common to both versions of the film. (Wikipedia)
The General Line is available for free download at the Internet Archive
84m; Uruguay
Director: Adrián Biniez
Cast: Horacio Camandule, Leonor Svarcas and Ignacio Alcuri
Synopsis: A chronicle of a supermarket security guard’s obsession with a late-shift janitor.
7m; U.K.
Director: Matthew Hoad-Robson
Synopsis: Slick and stylish, a man and a woman compete for the same job. They meet in a bold, stark environment, each desperate to win out over the other.
Contact: Youtube link to full film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E93BCu3pKvc Found on 2007 Palms Springs Shorts Film Festival: http://www.psfilmfest.org/festival/film/detail.aspx?id=19323&FID=31
28m; Germany
Director: Alexandra Welt
Synopsis: Digital handcraft is an educational film, a portrait of the process of computer hardware production. It displays the organisation of production in global value chains and investigates the conditions of life and labour for millions of migrant worker in China’s factories, which manufacture the hardware for the immaterial production of the 21st century. This film takes a look at the flipside of globalised computer production, which is incongruous with the “clean” image the industry usually displays. By interviewing both activists and workers, the film investigates the current situation as well as future possibilities for improving their situation. Furthermore, the film looks at issues surrounding the illegal shipping of computer scrap parts from Germany to developing countries.
Contact: http://vimeo.com/18616242 PARKAFILM Alexandra Weltz aw@parkafilm.cc
83m; U.S.
Director: Nancy D. Kates, Bennett Singer
Synopsis: Biography of Bayard Rustin, a socialist and pacifist activist involved in labor struggles and who became a key adviser to Martin Luther King, Jr. (including serving as the lead organizer for the 1963 March on Washington). Film also explores the constant conflicts Rustin was forced into given treatment of homosexuals.
Contact: http://rustin.org/
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