110m; Japan
Director: Lee Sang-il
Cast: Yasuko Matsuyuki, Etsushi Toyokawa and Yû Aoi
Synopsis: Billy Elliot meets “Shall We Dance?” Japanese coal-mining town tries to deal with loss of jobs.
Contact: http://www.fortissimofilms.com/catalogue/title.asp?filmID=311
Trailer
96m; U.K.
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Kierston Wareing, Juliet Ellis and Leslaw Zurek
Synopsis (IMDB): Angie gets the sack from a recruitment agency for bad behaviour in public. Seizing the chance, she teams up with her flatmate, Rose, to run a similar business from their kitchen. With immigrants desperate to work the opportunities are considerable, particularly for two girls so in tune with these times
Contact: Please feel free to show whichever of Ken’s films you feel your audience would most appreciate. You should be able to get a copy of most of them but a couple of them are dogged by convoluted rights issues with the BBC. However, the BFI and the British Council are a great source and will help you get most of the films. The best person to contact in the first instance is: Geraldine.higgins@britishcouncil.org (from “Ann Cattrall”)
Trailer
87m; U.S.
Contact: Ramin Bahrani
Cast: Ahmad Razvi, Leticia Dolera and Charles Daniel Sandoval
Synopsis (IMDB): A night in the life of a former Pakistani rock star who now sells coffee from his push cart on the streets of Manhattan.
Trailer
113m; Spain
Director: Fernando Leon de Aranoa
Cast: Javier Bardem, Luis Tosar and José Ángel Egido
Synopsis (IMDB): 2001: men without jobs, in the port city of Vigo. Six men worked in a shipyard, now shuttered. They pass the time at La Naval, a bar opened by one of them after the yard closed. They face their futures in makeshift ways: Rico has his bar and a sharp 15-year-old daughter, Reina has become a watchman and a moralizer, Lino fills out job applications, Amador drinks heavily and talks of his wife’s return; José is married to Ana, who works at a cannery and tires of being the breadwinner amidst José’s emasculated moodiness; Santa, the group’s conscience and troublemaker, occasionally fantasizes about Australia. In truth, all are joined like Siamese twins, adrift.
Contact: distributor: Lions Gate Films Alyssa Chinn Ph: 310 314-9597 Fax: 310 396-6041 achinn@lgecorp.com
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135m; U.S.
Director: John Sayles
Cast: Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell, David Strathairn
Synopsis: John Sayles, one of the leading independent directors in the world, came to WV in 1983 to film one of the most famous confrontations between laborer and owners in the town of Matewan, Mingo County, WV, 1920. It took him four years to finally finish the film, directing “Brother from another Planet” during that time period. Coal miners, struggling to form a union, are up against company operators and Baldwin-Felts agents. Black and Italian miners, brought in by the company to break the strike, are caught between the two forces. Union activist and ex-Wobbly Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper), sent to help organize the union, determines to bring the local, black, and Italian groups together. Drawn from an actual incident; the characters of Sheriff Sid Hatfield (David Strathairn), Mayor Cabell Testerman (Josh Mostel), C. E. Lively (Bob Gunton) , and Few Clothes Johnson were based on real people. James Earl Jones plays Few Clothes Johnson, a black coal miner who joins the union to stop massive abuses. The execution of Sheriff Hatfield on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse steps by Baldwin-Felts agents led to the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest armed labor conflict in American history. Music by WV native Hazel Dickens. Nominated for an Oscar by Haskell Wexler for best cinematography. Filmed in Thurmond and the New River Gorge, WV.
Trailer
Key Clip
In this scene, Chris Cooper’s organizer character gives an impassioned speech about the meaning of being in a union, with an explicit attack on racism and other forces that would divide workers.
110m; U.S.
Director: Martin Ritt
Cast: Sally Fields, Beau Bridges, Ron Liebman
Synopsis: Sally Fields won an Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal of a Southern textile worker in the 1970s. Faced with problems and challenges both personal and at work, Norma Rae proves receptive to the message of a union organizer seeking to start a drive at her plant. The film is based on the real story of Crystal Lee Sutton and the ACTWU’s drive to organize JP Stevens’ plants in the South in the 1970s.
Trailer
Key Scene
126m; U.S.
Director: Niki Caro
Cast: Charlize Theron, Jeremy Renner and Frances McDormand
Synopsis (IMDB): A fictionalized account of the first major successful sexual harassment case in the United States — Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines, where a woman who endured a range of abuse while working as a miner filed and won the landmark 1984 lawsuit.
(NYT) Set in and around the iron mines of Northern Minnesota between 1989 and 1991, Niki Caro’s muscular and absorbing drama addresses workplace sexual harassment at its most primitive and bludgeoning. A dowdy Charlize Theron is Josey Aimes, a poor single mother and newly hired miner. Hated by the men and unprotected by the union, Josey and her peers are relentlessly groped and sadistically bullied — behavior that reflects a community riddled with regressive misogyny.
Driven by righteous anger and inspired by a spearheading real-life lawsuit, the movie rises above its fight-the-power formula with a fabulous cast — including Sissy Spacek, Frances McDormand and Woody Harrelson — and a potent sense of place. In Chris Menges’s gorgeously smoky shots of blasted earth and gnashing machinery, spraying explosions and blackened pits, we see an oppressively alien landscape that’s hostile to man and woman alike. JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Trailer
96m; U.K.
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Dean Andrews, Thomas Craig and Joe Duttine
Synopsis (IMDB): In South Yorkshire, a small group of railway maintenance men discover that because of privatization, their lives will never be the same. When the trusty British Rail sign is replaced by one reading East Midland Infrastructure, it is clear that there will be the inevitable winners and losers as downsizing and efficiency become the new buzzwords. A cheery camaraderie is soon replaced by uncertainty and turmoil when their depot manager fills them in on the details of the new arrangement. Privatization means that the customer now comes first, something that is instilled into the men in new training sessions. But there are inconsistencies and shortsightedness to the new ways. Men used to working together now find themselves belonging to different, competing companies. Some even have to tender for their old jobs. Others decide to take the redundancy packages offered by the firm. As always, corners are cut in the interest of lowering costs, leading to a series of misadventures.
Contact: “From: Cary Jones cjones@firstlookmedia.com To: manderson@igc.org Subject: Date: Tue, May 7, 2002, 9:35 PM Dear Mr. Garlock: Jon Flanders sent me a copy of your inquiry regarding our film “The Navigators”. We do not have any plans to open the film until later in the fall at the very earliest. When we do open the film in the Rochester area, it might be possible to arrange a special premiere in conjunction with the opening. While I can’t tell you for sure where we will open the film, in the past we’ve often booked our films in the Little Theatre. You may want to contact them about your interest in the film. Thanks for your interest in the Navigators. Cary Jones Tiffany Naiman International Marketing Coordinator Overseas Filmgroup A Division of First Look Media 8000 Sunset Blvd., East Penthouse Los Angeles, CA 90046 Tel: 323.337.1000 Fax: 323.337.1078
Trailer
126m; Italy
Director: Mario Monicelli
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Renato Salvatori and Gabriella Giorgelli
Synopsis: Exploited textile factory workers in Turin, Italy at the turn of the century and the beginnings of their fight for better working conditions.
Trailer
94m; U.S.
Director: J. Walter Ruben
Cast: Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy and Una Merkel
Synopsis: Fisherman Dutch marries cannery worker Hattie. After he is kicked out of his union and fired from his job he leaves Hattie who steals money for him and goes to jail. He gets a new job, foils a plot to dynamite the ship, and promises to wait for Hattie.
Trailer
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