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
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
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
147m; USA
Director: Hal Ashby
Cast: David Carradine, Ronny Cox and Melinda Dillon
Synopsis: Film biography of American folksinger Woody Guthrie.
Trailer
Full Film
60M; Senegal
Director: Ousmane Sembene
Cast: Mbissine Thérèse Diop, Anne-Marie Jelinek and Robert Fontaine
Synopsis (IMDB): A Senegalese woman is eager to find a better life abroad. She takes a job as a governess for a French family, but finds her duties reduced to those of a maid after the family moves from Dakar to the south of France. In her new country, the woman is constantly made aware of her race and mistreated by her employers. Her hope for better times turns to disillusionment and she falls into isolation and despair. The harsh treatment leads her to consider suicide the only way out.
Full Film
11m; Burma and Thailand
Synopsis: A special report of the International Transport Workers’ Federation about Burma’s migrant fishers. Undocumented Burmese fishermen suffer brutal treatment at the hands of their Thai bosses. Seafarer unions are working to expose these crimes and help Burmese workers in the fishing industry win basic rights and worker protections.
See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deCo_ZBSk-U
29:03; U.S.
Director: Mark Catlin
Cast: Studs Terkel
Synopsis: “Studs Terkel narrates this fast-paced history of occupational health and safety in the U.S. from the Industrial Revolution to the 1970s, which OSHA produced in 1979. Rare archival footage and photos illustrate the problems behind dramatic tragedies as well as the daily dangers that put workers at risk for long-term health problems. It also connects the health and safety movement with the civil rights and environmental movements. This is one of three wonderful films produced and distributed by OSHA during the administration of Dr. Eula Bingham – Can’t Take No More; Worker to Worker; and OSHA. Then in 1981, the new head of OSHA, under the Reagan Administration, Thorne Auchter recalled most copies and they disappeared. A few copies were kept alive by union officials who refused to return their copies. The penalty for being discovered in possession of one of these films was losing all OSHA funding for their safety and health programs.”
THE LABOR FILM DATABASE 