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Category Archives: Documentary

The New Americans

20 Apr

Director: Gordon Quinn
USA, Kartemquin/PBS Independent Lens, 2004 (411 minutes)
Synopsis: Interweaves stories of immigrants & refugees
https://www.kartemquin.com/films/the-new-americans/about 

Contact: Gordon cel: cel 773-339-7692 773-235-0816, and Kartemquin, 773-472-4366.

The New Americans follows four years in the lives of a diverse group of contemporary immigrants and refugees as they journey to start new lives in America. We follow an Indian couple to Silicon Valley through the dot-com boom and bust. A Mexican meatpacker struggles to reunite his family in rural Kansas. Two families of Nigerian refugees (including the sister of slain Ogoni activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa) escape government persecution. Two Los Angeles Dodgers prospects follow their big dreams of escaping the barrios of the Dominican Republic. A Palestinian woman who marries into a new life in Chicago only to discover in the wake of September 11, she cannot leave behind the pain of her homeland’s conflict.

Kartemquin assembled a team of talented directors including the creators of Hoop Dreams, Who Killed Vincent Chin, and Vietnam, Long Time Coming. The detailed portraits that resulted were woven into a seven-hour miniseries that presents a kaleidoscopic picture of immigrant life and a first impression of the U.S. that few born in America can imagine.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration

 

The New Deal (1971)

20 Apr

25m; U.S.

Director: McGraw-Hill, Inc.

Synopsis: History of the New Deal.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Labor History

 

New Harvest, Old Shame (1990)

20 Apr

57m; U.S.

Director: Hector Galan

Synopsis (IMDB): A sequel to Edward R. Murrow’s famous Harvest of Shame documentary, showing the deplorable conditions of migrant farm workers in 1960, found little has changed in 30 years.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Farm & Food, Immigrants/Immigration, Migrant workers, Safety & Health

 

The New Los Angeles (2007)

20 Apr

55m; U.S.

Director: Lyn Goldfarb

Synopsis: A powerful portrait of a city transformed by immigration, race and labor.

Contact: Patricia Aufderheide

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration

 

New River: Older than Time (1989)

20 Apr

29m; U.S.

Synopsis: Wayne Sourbear, an employee of WSWP-TV, travels down the New River, explores the people, history and great beauty of this waterway in his 1989 short.

Contact: Access: WVPBS TV. Debbie Oleksa, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, Morgantown, 1- 888-596-9729 or her cell 304-284-1455

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Labor History

 

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The New Rulers of the World (2001)

20 Apr

54m; U.K.

Director: Alan Lowery, John Pilger

Synopsis (IMDB): The myths of globalisation have been incorporated into much of our everyday language. “Thinking globally” and “the global economy” are part of a jargon that assumes we are all part of one big global village, where national borders and national identities no longer matter. But what is globalisation? And where is this global village? In 2001, John Pilger made ‘The New Rulers of the World’, a film exploring the impact of globalisation. It took Indonesia as the prime example, a country that the World Bank described as a ‘model pupil’ until its ‘globalised’ economy collapsed in 1998. Globalisation has not only made the world smaller. It has also made it interdependent. An investment decision made in London can spell unemployment for thousands in Indonesia, while a business decision taken in Tokyo can create thousands of new jobs for workers in north-east England..

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Global Economy, Outsourcing, Politics

 

Next Year Country (2009)

20 Apr

56m; U.S.

Director: Joseph Aguirre

Synopsis: Faced with losing their farms, three Montana families hire a rainmaker in a desperate attempt to bring relief to their drought-stricken communities. NEXT YEAR COUNTRY tells the heartfelt story of three families and the optimism which sustains them in their struggle to hold on to a vanishing way of life.

Contact: info@nextyearcountry.com

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Farm & Food, Working Class

 

Night Mail (1936)

20 Apr

22:39m; available on YouTube
Night Mail is a 1936 documentary film about a London, Midland and Scottish
Railway (LMS) mail train from London to Scotland, produced by the GPO Film
Unit. A poem by English poet W. H. Auden was specially written for it, used
in the closing few minutes, as was music by Benjamin Britten. (The two men
also collaborated on a rail-documentary on the line from London to
Portsmouth, The Way to the Sea, also in 1936.)

The film was directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, and narrated by John
Grierson and Stuart Legg. The Brazilian filmmaker Alberto Cavalcanti was the
sound director. It starred Royal Scot 6115 Scots Guardsman.

As recited in the film, the poem’s rhythm imitates that of the train’s
wheels as they clatter over the track sections, beginning slowly but picking
up speed so that by the time the narration reaches the penultimate verse the
narrator is speaking at a breathless pace. As the train slows toward its
destination the final verse is taken at a more sedate pace. The famous
opening lines of the poem are “This is the Night Mail crossing the border /
Bringing the cheque and the postal order”.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Public Sector, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), Technology, Transportation

 

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No Contract, No Cookies: The Stella D’Oro Strike (2010)

20 Apr

39m; U.S.

Director: Jon Alpert, Matthew O’Neill

Synopsis (IMDB): Follows the struggle of 138 mostly immigrant workers who strike to save their jobs at a famous bakery in the Bronx when a private equity firm buys the bakery and demands wage cuts of up to 30%.

Contact: http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/no-contract-no-cookies-the-stella-doro-strike/index.html#/documentaries/no-contract-no-cookies-the-stella-doro-strike/synopsis.html

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Finance, Immigrants/Immigration, Organizing, Service Workers, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

No Sweat (2006)

20 Apr

54m; U.S.

Director: Amie Williams

Synopsis (IMDB): An all-American tale about an all-American garment: The T-shirt, NO SWEAT takes a wild ride into the bowels of Los Angeles garment industry. Mostly undocumented workers at American Apparel and SweatX are offered better wages, benefits, even a shot at worker-ownership. But what’s really behind the label?

Contact: http://www.balmaidenfilms.com/who.html

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration, Organizing, Working Class

 
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